


Cycle 69 - Fill This Year with Laughter and Love

by Sticks_And_Stones



Series: Cycle 69 [1]
Category: My Brother My Brother and Me (Podcast), The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Crack Crossover, Crossover, Family Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23096248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sticks_And_Stones/pseuds/Sticks_And_Stones
Summary: It's finally time. The magic cycle is upon the IPRE crew, and at first it seems pretty normal. Sure, it's a boring planet populated solely by polluting humans and animals of all shapes and forms. But how come some of the media asks them about these McElroy folk? And why are three of their own starring in a graphic novel?
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone), Magnus Burnsides & Taako
Series: Cycle 69 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847101
Comments: 79
Kudos: 211





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is an idea that I've had for a while, and with what's going on, decided to just publish it. The work that inspired me is 'Death Finds a Way' by elgrey (here on Ao3). Thanks to my friend Rachel for helping me with a title. Comments are always appreciated, find me on tumblr at dontbugmeimantisocial. Stay safe, stay inside, have a good day!

“It’s here! It's finally, finally here!” Before he could even see, Taako felt his sister and Magnus wrap their arms around him, the two of them laughing with glee.

“What’s here?” Davenport asked, sitting at the helm and rubbing a spot on his shoulder where a tendril had managed to stab him before the cycle ended. “We just exited that last cycle-”

“Exactly, Cap’n!” Magnus said, setting the twins down. “And do you know what cycle that was? What number was it? And what does that mean this year’s number is?”

“The sixty-” Lucretia stopped and giggled before fighting off the smile on her face. "That's very immature."

“The sixty-what cycle, Lucy?” Merle asked, rubbing the skin around his black eye. "What's so immature?"

“It _was_ the sixty-eigth cycle. Now it's-” Barry piped up before doubling over with laughter.

“Yes! The sixty-eigth! Which means what, Captain?!” Taako asked, pointing to their captain. Davenport sighed, unable to hide the small smile as he mumbled, “It’s the sixty-ninth cycle.”

“CYCLE 69!” Lup roared, her hands catching fire as she ran around the ship, chanting, “69! 69!”

Taako was howling with laughter at this point, tears streaming down his face as he tried to catch his breath. Magnus calmed down enough to the railing of the ship, taking a look down on the Prime Material Plane they were approaching.

“Looks a little like home. Lots of land and water. Lots of places to park.”

“Blue sky, although it’s very polluted. That means that there is life on this planet that’s technologically advanced enough to make the pollution and its cure but for some reason, aren’t.” Merle added, joining him at the railing. “There’s only one sun in this solar system and I saw about seven planets coming in. One for each of us.”

“No, there were definitely eight,” Barry argued from the helm. “That small one on the outskirts had all the makings of a planet. We could put Templeton’s grave marker on that one.”

Merle shrugged. “Either way, I can fix them up no problemo. All you gotta do is let ol’ Merle do the talking.”

“We trust you, Merle, but I don’t think that’s not going to happen.” Davenport sighed, putting the ship into park outside of the closest moon’s gravitational field. “That last one was a bit difficult and I need a minute to recover. When we’re all ready, we can head down to the plane. Let’s just hope the inhabitants are smart enough not to blow the strange flying ship out of the sky.”

\--

It didn't take long for them to find out. Even if they hadn’t had their phones out when the sudden surge of notifications, they could have flipped on the TV and found out themselves. Either way, when the news broke, it meant that their lives would change forever.

Travis was about ready to start recording for a new episode of _Shmanners_ when his phone began to buzz with notifications. It was Monday, so the new MbMbaM episode had been released an hour ago, so it was most likely reactions to the episode.

“Wow, someone’s popular,” Teresea said, walking in with their tea and kissing him on the head. He smiled up at her, taking the mug from her hand.

“No, they’re just mad I got the best wife on the planet.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “You going to keep that on all session or are you going to turn it off?”

“No, I’m gonna turn it off. That live episode dropped so I’m going to wait another five minutes or so before turning them off. Let people get it out of their systems so I don't log on and have to delete a ton of notifications.”

Teresa chuckled, sipping her tea.

But five minutes came and passed with no sign that his phone would stop buzzing anytime soon. In fact, it seemed that the messages had somehow doubled in speed.

“Well? Going to let us record or not?” she asked, sounding a little more than annoyed.

“Yeah, I guess I should.”

He grabbed his phone, intending to put it on mute until the recording session was over, but his eye caught one of the messages before he could.

_‘IT’S THEM! GUYS IT’S THEM!’,_ with his family tagged with a photo and a link to a news article.

He held up a hand, slipping off his headphones. “Hang on. This is definitely not about the new MbMbaM.”

“Well, what’s going on?”

He shrugged and clicked on the message, thinking that it would just be some kind of fanart. His eyes registered the words that appeared on the screen, _‘Aliens Exist, and They Are From the Moon’,_ but then he saw the photo and his mind went blank. There was no way… this had to be some sort of elaborate prank, cosplay, a fan who put enough time and dedication into a project to create this.

He had never seen the figures in the photo before, and yet, he felt like he was seeing an old friend after a long time apart. They were so familiar; seven red-robed figures atop a gleaming white boat with a large circle suspended at the back by invisible bonds…

He didn’t notice that Teresa was yelling his name until a paper ball hit him in the forehead.

“Travis?! Are you okay?” his wife asked, a sly but worried smile playing across her lips.

“I’ve got to- to go. I need to talk to my brothers and dad,” he said, throwing off his headphones and dialing Justin’s number as quickly as he could. He ran to the garage, locking himself in his car and waiting desperately for his brother to pick up the phone.

“What’s up Trav?”

“Did you see the news?!” he gasped.

“What, no? I’m out with Charlie right now and-”

“Justin, I’m sending you a link. Look at it right now and call me back when you’re done. I need to call Griffin and Dad.”

“Okay- Travis, you okay?”

Travis sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I… I don’t know, Justin. I’m going to figure that out once I can finally talk to Griffin and Dad.”

“Alright. I’ll call you when I’m done with the article.”

Travis hung up and was about to dial his younger brother’s number when Griffin's name popped up on the screen, the double icons showing that he was on-call with their dad. 

“I saw,” he said breathlessly the instant he picked up. “I saw and… it can’t be real, can it?”

“Apparently it can be,” Griffin replied, and Travis could hear him pacing around nervously. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you told Justin yet?” Clint asked.

“I just texted him the link to one of the articles, he should be calling-” His phone bleeped as Justin’s number appeared at the top. “Hold on, I’m adding him to the call.”

As soon as he did, he heard Justin say in a hushed whisper, “Hey what the fuck?!”

“Exactly what I said!” Clint agreed.

“Dad, I’m going to drop Charlie off at home and I’ll be at the studio in ten, okay? We gotta talk about this.”

“What’s there to talk about, exactly?” Travis asked as Justin hung up. “Like… what do we know about this situation?”

“I can tell you, Trav. I can tell you that our FICTIONAL PODCAST CHARACTERS are at the moon! Oh yeah, we can also expect to be hearing from our lawyers and representatives pretty damn soon! As soon as they figure out the connection between them and us, media is going to be all over us with interviews, a-and we’re fucked.” As angry, scared and confused as Griffin sounded, Travis almost hoped that the underlying tone he was hearing was some form of excitement.

“Yeah, that’s going to be hell,” Clint said.

“Let’s… not make a comment. Don’t go on social media, don’t respond to any calls that aren’t from people we're close to,” Travis suggested. “This is… insane.”

He heard the two chuckle, although they were obviously very forced.

“That it is.”

Travis hung up after a minute of silence and returned to the article. The news had said that they were on the moon, which was a bit strange, but smart even if they didn’t know how trigger happy most of the world was. He tried to ignore the photo as he reached the article and began to read.

_‘It’s official, ladies and gentlemen. After decades of debate amongst the world as to whether life outside of our world exists, we finally have proof. NASA has released the above photo within an hour of taking it._

_The ship appeared out of nowhere earlier this morning. appears to be similar to some human ocean ships of the past, although the ring near the rear has unknown origins and properties._

_There are seven aliens aboard this ship, all of whom are extremely humanoid and seem to be wearing red robes._

_It is unclear what the intentions of these aliens are, but as of 10 minutes ago, NASA reported that the United States government is trying to contact the ship to answer this question. Other countries such as Britain, France, and Russia are also in the midst of trying to be the first to have successful contact with aliens._

_Are they here to destroy us? Are they alone in their expedition through space? All we know for now, is that we certainly are not. Updates will appear on this page as they come._

A grim article for sure, and as Travis read it, all he could think was how wrong and misguided the author of this article was. Their first point in the article is that they didn’t know what the ship did? What did it matter?! It was a spaceship! That was fucking cool enough to warrant a page of compliments! Second, the author described them as ‘humanoid’. What did they think that aliens would look exactly how we thought?

He snorted out loud at the thought; any of the seven with those 'Close Encounter' heads was a hilarious thought. In fact, it wasn’t just a hilarious joke: it was a hilarious fact. They could do that because they were real and because they were here.

Travis ran the thought through his head a few times and despite the insanity of it, and the strange nagging fear that poked the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but smile. It was cool as fuck.

\--

Barry looked up from his screen. "You’re going to hate this. And I don’t just mean every magic user on the ship, I mean Taako is going to hate this most out of everyone on this ship."

"What's up, babe?" Taako asked, leaning his arms over Barry's shoulders.

"Get your own nerd, dorkus," Lup said, hip bumping her twin out of the way and replacing him on Barry's shoulders. "What's up, babe?"

"Well," he rubbed his neck. "The planes here are all out of whack. Like, they're connected and all, but they're so unconnected that they hardly affect each other at all. It's odd… but not uncommon. We've seen this before."

"Not to this calibur." Lup said and pointed to one of the circles on the screen. "That should be the plane of magic, but it's almost completely cut off. No connection with the material plane, at all."

"Why?" Taako asked. "It should be zip, zap, zip and boom! Magic. None of this disconnected crap."

"I'm guessing it's the distance between the two planes." Barry said. "For anyone to use magic efficiently, you'd have to stand on the plane."

"Well that's bullshit." Taako exclaimed. "I can't be Taako without magic! Without magic, I’m just Lup’s lamer brother!"

"Now hold on, I'm not saying that we don't have magic," Barry said quickly. "I'm just saying that it’ll either be extremely difficult to use it. We’ll have to do some tests and studies before actually having a definitive answer as to how our magic will work here, but for now, I’d suggest not using magic.”

Taako grumbled. “Still bullshit. I’m gonna go make dinner.”

As he sulked out of the room, Magnus came waltzing in, Fisher floating by his head, consuming what appeared to be an old scroll. Barry wasn’t too worried. They had spent weeks sorting through what they had on the ship to find what was appropriate to feed to the jellyfish and what wasn’t. 

“What’s his deal?”

“Magic’s fucked up in this reality, so we can’t use magic as well as we want to,” Lup explained, stretching and leaving Barry’s side with a kiss. “I’m gonna go help Lucretia and Dav try and figure out more about this world. I’ll let them know what we found out about magic. You two play nice.”

Magnus looked at the screen in front of Barry, quickly getting bored after realizing that it was boring science information.

“So, how’s communication coming along?” Barry asked.

“Eh,” Magnus replied. “It’s obvious that they’re trying to reach us, but they don’t exactly know how. Dav’s worried that they’re going to try to attack us before we even get the chance to land.”

“I hate ones like these,” Barry groaned. “Why can’t it ever be, ‘Oh, we’re aliens no big deal. A light of pure knowledge and creation is going to fall out of the sky soon, and in a year, so will a giant, unstoppable plane of darkness.’ With how Lucretia made the inhabitants seem, they'll probably kill us for that alone.”

Magnus chuckled. "Whatever happens…" His voice trailed off as his eyes fixed on the plane below them, a smile tugging the corner of his lips. "... I feel like something really special will happen this time."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place about two, three days after the events of the first chapter. Comments are always appreciated!

Griffin didn’t know how he had forgotten about it. How the hell had he forgotten about something that had driven the characters of his own story for nearly three years in real life and a hundred of their own. Looking back on it, he almost groaned outwardly at the thought of his own stupidity. 

Three days after the IPRE appeared at the moon, the Light of Creation fell and landed just outside of the White House. Horrible place to land if they wanted easy access to it, but here at least Griffin would have easy access to news on them. 

Less than an hour after the Light landed, the news reported that the Starblaster had entered the atmosphere and was approaching the White House. The government declared a state of emergency, ordering everyone to stay indoors until it was deemed safe to leave. Other countries had done the same, with some even preparing their militaries for war. Griffin said he wasn’t nervous, and that was the truth of the moment. He knew that the crew would make it out of here alive. He was more scared that they wouldn’t be able to collect the Light before the Hunger came. 

But he couldn’t focus on that right now; for now, the contact. 

Griffin was situated in front of the TV, his eyes glued on the screen as the ship descended on the ground. Countless news outlets crowded the area (if he had heard correctly, someone from Polygon was there) and were barely held back by police force. More forces were stationed around the landing zone of the ship, their guns raised and at the ready. 

Rachel sat down next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “It’ll be fine, dear. They know what they’re doing, don’t they?”

“Yeah, they do… but it’s still stressful. Regardless of who they are, this is still our first contact with aliens.” 

“Oh come on, you’re Henry’s father. This is nothing.”

He smiled at her, his attention momentarily directed towards her. But his eyes flitted back to the screen just in time to see the ring at the back of the ship stop glowing and as he watched, a gangplank extended from the deck of the ship. With a trembling hand, he turned up the volume on the TV so he could hear anything that was being said or done.

_“Ladies and gentlemen, we are mere seconds away from having first contact with extraterrestrial life.”_

Griffin could feel the world draw a collective breath as a figure appeared at the top of it and walked down, the red cape flapping in the wind behind her. Seeing who it was made his stomach leap, but he felt a wave of relief wash through him; at least they had the sense to send out someone capable of making first contact. 

Lucertia raised her hands and just before she could speak, two identical red-robed figures pushed past her. 

_“Wassup, kemosabes?! Name’s Taako and this is Lup! We-”_

Lucretia pushed them aside as they cackled in delight. Griffin, and most likely the rest of the world, could see how hard she was trying not to smile too much as she furiously whispered something to them and continued. _“We mean you no harm. Is there somewhere my crew and I can speak more privately with someone of power?”_

The President approached, his hands clasped behind his back. _“I’m in charge here. What do you mean, the rest of your crew? Where are they and how many?”_

 _“There are seven of us in total and the other four just inside the ship.”_ She turned and waved her hand and suddenly, there they all were, their robes starkly contrasted against the purity of the ship.

 _“The seven of us mean no harm, as my crew mate said,”_ Davenport said, _“but we’d prefer to have this conversation a little more…”_ his head turned towards the cameras, the message getting across clearly. 

The President nodded and raised a hand, ordering the guards around the ship to lower their weapons.

_“We may talk inside. My soldiers will make sure that your ship remains untouched, but I do request that we investigate it to ensure that there is nothing aboard that can harm us.”_

_“Of course. Our chief of security here-”_ he gestured to Magnus, who had thankfully put on a shirt for the occasion _“-will escort you around the ship.”_

The President nodded and walked back into the White House. The crew exchanged a few words before following after him, escorted by a dozen or so guards. As they passed, Griffin saw Taako and Lup grinning widely, making faces at all the cameras that had been flashing in their direction the entire time. But the guards crowded the camera’s views before there could be any more photos or videos taken. The last that he saw of the IPRE was Lucretia looking over her shoulder at the cameras, her brow furrowed with worry that hadn’t been present before. 

The instant the doors closed behind them, Griffin turned off the TV and collapsed into the couch, his head in his hands. Rachel placed a hand on his arm. 

“Griffin, are you going to be okay?”

He let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “All depends on if they get the Light or not. If they do, great, just gotta survive the apocalypse. And if they don’t… I don’t want to think about it.”

\--

The scouts arrived two days later, and Griffin was prepared for it. He didn’t know just how powerful the blast would be, but he and his brothers were damn sure that their children would be as protected as possible. They bought them all industrial-level earmuffs, and despite the children’s protests, made them keep it on every day after the Light fell. 

He had been in the middle of cooking dinner when it happened. One moment, the sky was clear and bright. The next, a deafening roar erupted in the air, knocking him to the ground, unable to move or even think about what was happening. Even incapacitated, he could hear the whispers, billions of them searching and grasping for life. He couldn't see the eyes, but he felt them burning through his home and into his soul.

In what seemed like a second, it was over. The sky was blue again and the whispers had vanished, leaving a ringing silence in their wake. He got to his feet shakily, his ears ringing from the blast. 

“Rachel?” he called out. “Are you and Henry okay?”

His wife stumbled into the room, massaging her temples and holding Henry in one of her arms. He looked more than a little confused but otherwise fine. 

She nodded, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and handing Henry over to him. “We’re fine. Was that it? The Hunger?” 

He nodded, taking off Henry’s earmuffs and giving him a tight squeeze and kiss. “Yeah. I’m going to call Travis, Justin and Dad to figure out what we’re going to do. Probably nothing, seeing as we can’t do anything.” 

“Do you want to keep Henry with you?”

He shook his head. “No, you know how it is with us. Too many naughty words for Henry to hear.” 

He tickled his son, causing him to laugh and shriek, trying to escape. Rachel chuckled weakly and took Henry, shooing him off with the promise of snacks. She took Griffin’s hand and after a moment of silence said, “We’re going to be safe, right?” 

At this point, Griffin had a choice. He could tell her the truth or he could lie to make her feel safer. But they had been married for almost a decade, and he knew that telling the truth was always better than lying. 

“For now, yes. A year from now? I’m not sure.”

She nodded and without another word, went to join Henry in the other room.

“So, everyone okay on the home front for all of you?” Justin asked once they were all in the Skype call. 

“All safe and sound,” Travis reported.

“A few confused passerby's, but no one was seriously injured,” Clint said.

“Henry could have slept through it. My kid has my tolerance for loud noises,” Griffin said with a laugh.

“You get that from me,” Clint said. “How do you think I handle being a radio DJ?” 

Travis rolled his eyes. “Continuing: we have a year before the Hunger comes. When it does, it’ll be looking for the Light. The IPRE will escape and we know they will because they’re still travelling. We don’t know what cycle they’re on, but they’ll make it out.”

“That’s something at least,” Justin said, leaning back in his chair. “Hey, I wonder if we could figure out what cycle their on, based solely on context clues.”

“Someone on tumblr probably has already,” Griffin replied. “I’d check, but well…”

“Got me there.”

“If they have the jellyfish, that means it’s after that art world, right?” Clint asked. 

“Oh shit, you’re right. If they have Fisher, we could figure out what like… chunk of the century they’re in,” Travis said, leaning forward towards the monitor.

“But we don’t know if they have Fisher,” Griffin retorted, sending them all back in their stupor. “If we killed Lup or Barry that’d tell us a lot more than if they had Fisher.” 

Over the next few days, there was absolute radio silence from the White House and from his brothers. The media had desperately been trying to get answers about the most recent events, but the only thing that they said is that there would be answers soon. In the meantime, the media outlets focused their attention on the protests that surrounded the White House day and night, the ones asking the aliens to leave their planet and take their business elsewhere. 

At least they hadn't connected the crew to his family yet.

Griffin spent his days editing videos and podcast episodes, having made an agreement with their manager to release any live show that hadn’t been aired and using pre-recorded ad breaks instead of recording something entirely new. 

It wasn’t until almost a week after the Scouts had arrived that he heard anything. At almost one in the morning, he was rudely awakened by his phone blaring out Justin’s ringtone. Rachel groaned, pulling a pillow over her head as Griffin answered his phone.

“Juice, it’s-”

“They got the Light.”

Griffin was suddenly wide awake. “Oh fuck, really?!” 

“Yeah, Travis, Dad and I are in a Skype call.” 

Griffin hung up. 

"What do they want?" Rachel asked.

"The crew was able to procure the Light of Creation," he said, rustling around for his glasses.

"That's good news, right?"

"Yes, it's very good news."

He saw her smile faintly. "I'm glad... tell me about it..."

Rachel drifted back to sleep before she could finish the sentence, but by then, Griffin had rushed to his computer, logging in as quickly as he could and hopping into Skype. 

“They got the Light?” he asked as soon as he could clearly hear and see his family. 

Justin nodded and read from his phone, “Our otherworldly visitors, also known as the IPRE, were granted possession of the strange light that fell into the White House earlier this past week. The White House reported that the IPRE was interested in gaining access to the Light, although reasons have not been disclosed. The crew has agreed to a press conference this upcoming weekend to officially introduce and announce their intentions on Earth. The White House has not opened up for comment as to the origins of the Light thus far.”

As Justin read this aloud, Griffin felt a major weight off of his chest. It had been nearly three years since Balance had concluded, and although he had written it, a lot had been forgotten with Amnesty and the beginnings of Graduation. So after going through the entire wiki the day of the IPRE’s arrival, he had felt a churning in his stomach whenever he considered the possibility that the crew wouldn’t gain the Light.

“That means our plane is safe, right? The Hunger won’t eat it?” Clint asked. 

“Nope. It’ll attack looking for it but eventually move on,” Travis confirmed, the verbal confirmation seeming to take even more pressure off of his chest. His family let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Thank fuck,” Griffin murmured. “I didn’t want to be vored. That’d be an ironic way to go.”

There was a beat of silence before the four of them burst into laughter. It wasn’t even that funny of a joke, but it was like they needed to laugh. It had been days since he had heard anything but a nervous chuckle or forced laugh from anyone he talked to, so hearing his family genuinely happy again was a breath of fresh air. 

“You know,” Travis said, wiping a tear away, “how we said we wished we could get some answers from the crew about the cycles and stuff? I had the stupidest idea of how we could get those answers”

“Let’s hear it, Scraps,” Justin wheezed. 

“What if we just, like, sneak onto the ship? We’re the only people EVER that’ll be able to do it,” he said. 

The mood shifted immediately. The laughing turned into small chuckles and the smiles slowly faded away.

“What’re you talking about, Trav?” Clint asked. “‘Sneak onto the ship’?”

“Yeah like, get on board. Not necessarily do anything, but physically, we could do it.” 

“I’m not following.”

“I think I get it,” Griffin said, the pieces falling into place. “We made them. We voice them. You two can sound like three of them, I can sound like the other four.” 

“We could just walk right up to the White House and say that we’re the crew!” Justin exclaimed, the realization washing over him. “Oh that’s- that’s fucking something isn’t it.” 

“Wait, wouldn’t that be a federal crime or something?” Clint asked. “We’d be stealing people’s identities, sneaking onto government property and then, what, dicking around on an alien ship?” 

“I’m just kidding, dad,” Travis said. There was a moment of silence. “Unless…”

“Unless?” Griffin and Justin said almost automatically, and Griffin knew that they hadn’t just said that out of reflex nor as a joke. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place four months after the events of last chapter. Should be a fun ride from here. Sorry for the delay I completely lost track of what day it is, but I've got it all scheduled from here on out! Comments are always appreciated, my tumblr is dontbugmeimantisocial. Stay safe, wash your hands, have a good day!

"Lup and I are heading out!" Barry called. 

"How come?" Davenport asked from under the Starblaster's helm.

"We wanted to explore! We’ve spent four months in this reality and haven't seen anything but the White House and the surrounding mile!" Lup whined

"Well, how about-"

"The press has calmed down and we haven't had a break in since last month," Barry said. "We might be a bit hassled, but it's nothing we haven't dealt with before. It's supposed to rain, but they said it's just water and not boiling acid or something like Cycle 8."

“Besides, this is the only truly habitable planet for the next couple light years!”

"Pres and all the other fancy people were talking about how good the museums and the food was."

"Did I hear that you're going to try this world's food without me?" Taako said, popping up out of nowhere.

"And see museums without me?" Lucretia added.

"And explore a city filled with amazing plants and military without us?" Merle said, slinging an arm as high up Magnus' torso as he could. "Fat chance, lovebirds."

Davenport sighed. "Fine, but I need someone to stay. I'm fixing up the ship and need one of you to keep an eye on the Light."

"Fisher can stay!" Magnus suggested patting his friend off his shoulder. "Will you make sure Dav stays safe?"

Fisher bobbed up and down, floating over to Dav and settling on his shoulder. The captain sighed. "Fine, but please come back before this evening."

Lup and Barry grasped their each other hands tightly and rushed off the ship. Taako, Merle and Magnus followed suit, making fun of the two of their lovebird antics and before she left, Lucretia shared a 'I'll watch after them' look. Davenport sighed, looking at Fisher.

"Any idea how much longer I'm going to have to deal with them?" Fisher glowed dimly, letting out a few solemn notes. "For a jellyfish that eats knowledge, you're not very knowledgeable."

* * *

"Why are you doing this again?" 

"Honestly, I don't know," Justin said, trying his shoes a little too tightly. "I think it's the rush of the apocalypse, the insanity of the situation and the fact that we could actually do this."

"This being the stupidest, most illegal, most dangerous thing you've ever done?" Sydnee asked. "No, scratch that. This _is_ the stupidest, most illegal, most dangerous thing you've ever done."

"Maybe, you don't know everything about me." He stood and kissed her. "Listen, we'll be fine. The most dangerous part will be getting through the gates, but once we do that, we're home free."

"What are you planning on doing once you get on the ship?!" Sydnee was sounding almost desperate now and Justin rubbed her hand with his thumb.

"We're going to be getting as much info about the crew's current situation so we can better gauge how safe we'll be when the Hunger comes. We won’t interact unless we have to, but based on physical stuff, we should figure out what we need to know." Justin kissed her hand. "The more we know about what kind of things they've got, what their physical status is, how much info they've got, the better it'll be. It’ll be in and out, I promise. The worst that could happen is we get rained on, so I'll make sure to dry off before I come back in."

She sighed. "I guess so… It's stupidly dangerous; can't you just, I don't know, message them on Twitter?"

"I don't think that any of them have social media, and even if they did, there would be the problem of the media realizing our connection to them. Unfortunately to avoid the most trouble, we have to get into the most amount of trouble we can. We all understand how stupid this is, but it's for the kids. All of them: Charlie and Cooper and Henry and Bebe and Dorothy. Your family-"

"Using my family on me is a cheap tactic."

"Did it help convince you that even though it’s stupid, our hearts are in the right place?" 

She laughed and before she could say another word, there was a knock at front hotel door. 

"Juice, you ready?" 

“Yeah, be right there.” He kissed Sydnee one last time. “I’m going to go say bye to Charlie and Cooper. I love you, Sydnee.”

“Love you too, Justin.” She took his hand as he prepared to open the door. “And yeah, you did convince me.” 

He gave her a soft smile then opened the door from their rented hotel bedroom and was immediately assaulted by two small figures grasping onto his legs. 

“Hey, kiddos!” he said, picking up his daughter and son in both his arms. “Daddy’s got to go do some work, but I'll be back for dinner."

"Pizza?!" Charlie asked.

"Pizza and garlic sticks bab-ey." He planted a kiss on both their heads before setting them down. "I'll be back with pizza and garlic bread."

They cheered and got a moment Justin wanted more than anything to open the doors and tell his brothers to go without him. But his heart was in the right place.

Before he could hesitate a moment longer, he hugged Sydnee once more and walked through the door. Griffin and Travis were standing outside, both looking uncharacteristically nervous. Even before live shows, they were pumped with adrenaline and excitement and gratitude that people had shown up. Now, it was pure fear.

"Dad's in the car. You're gonna be okay, right?" His middle brother asked as the elevator dinged to a halt on their level.

"Sure," he replied, stepping into the elevator the instant the doors opened. Travis recognized the lie and pulled him into a hug. 

“It’ll be okay… I promise.” 

Justin nodded, pulling Griffin into the hug as well. The three stood there for the entire ride down, the only sound being the occasional beep from the machine or sniffle from the humans as they tried to hold back any emotions they were currently feeling.

Once in the lobby, they went silent again, not sure what to say. Justin stepped into the parking lot and noted that it was pretty overcast today. Not the Hunger overcast, just cloudy. According to the D.C. meteorologists, it was expected to rain quite a lot within the next few hours and storm all night. It was almost a warning as to the danger that lay ahead of them, telling them that if they took this road, there would be consequences, but there could also be great gains.

"We're crazy to be doing this," Clint repeated for the tenth time that day from the driver's seat once his sons were in the car. 

"Oh, absolutely," Griffin replied, but didn't add anything to that statement. They knew it was crazy but they knew it had to be done.

The drive from the hotel to the closest parking spot outside of the White House seemed to take no time at all. The roads were for the most part empty, but as they got closer to the city, the bumpers got closer and closer together until they decided it would be easier to walk a longer distance in a short amount of time than wait for the traffic to clear up and lose valuable time. After finding a parking space, Justin got out of the car and only then did he realize that from this vantage point, he could see the Starblaster in its through the gap between two buildings. 

"Holy shit," he whispered.

It was magnificent. Blinding white even in the overcast light, the ring behind it standing perfectly still in the buffeting wind. The name 'Starblaster' was painted eloquently on the side near the bow, each letter curving with precise accuracy and intent. The shipped was looked like some strange mix between a pirate ship and a modern yacht. The stern and bow of the ship were roofed, bordering the deck between the two quarters. Two large masts extended from the center deck, each with its own miniature bond engine (it must have been because of how loose for interpretation they’d left the design of the ship, perhaps something made for an extra boost of power if they needed it?). Justin could see scars of battle littering the underside of the ship as well as what seemed to be a long retractable arm similar to that of the claw machines at grocery stores. There was a large patch of the ship that was made of a completely different metal and looked as if it had been slapped on in a hurry and later redone with more precision and time.

“That puts us past that robot cycle,” Travis said, seemingly reading Justin’s mind. “I- Magnus asked the robots to design it, remember?”

“Yeah, I do. That was your old world and Griffin killed it, remember?” 

“It’s also past Lucretia’s cycle, the one with the judges,” Griffin said. “That big patch must’ve been from her time alone. Cycle… sixty-something. That narrows it to forty years, which is more information than we had before.”

“Griff, you really spoiled them. That thing is huge for seven people!” Clint said.

“I didn’t really have a design for it, that’s Carey’s thing and we haven’t even published Petals!” Griffin said, his eyes taking in his ‘creation’ with glee. “This is insane though! It’s right there!” 

“New to D.C. recently?” A passerby had heard the tail end of the conversation and butted in. She smiled at them, her long purple hair pulled into a ponytail. “Yeah, it’s become as normal as passing by a politician now. A bunch of the crew members were seen downtown a few minutes ago.”

“Do you know who it was?” Clint asked. 

“Uh yeah. There was one of the elves, the dwarf, that guy in jeans, Barry, Lucretia and Lup,” she said simply. 

“How come you remembered two of their names but not all of them?” Justin asked before he could stop himself. 

She shrugged. “I like them the most. Lup’s brother seemed a little, I dunno, vain? The big burly guy seemed nice but a little too rough for me. And the dwarf seemed to have a thing with plants which was weird.” 

Justin heard Griffin choke back a small laugh but cleared his throat. “Well thank you very much.”

She smiled. “No problem! Have a nice day!” 

As she walked away, Griffin came skipping up to him and said in a smug, sing-song voice, “I’ve got the best people. You guys got background people.”

“Shut up, Ditto, you play every single one of the people in our podcast except three,” Travis said. 

“You’re the youngest, we can and will gang up on you,” Justin added. 

“Boys, boys, stop bullying your brother,” Clint said, breaking up the conversation and for a moment, he thought he was about to defend Griffin. “Start completely harassing him about this.”

“Oh put a sock in it, Clinton.” Griffin sauntered ahead, fuming, leaving the other three cackling behind him.

The weather seemed to calm Justin’s brother down enough for them to talk as casually as they could as the gates to the House slowly approached. The clouds lay in a threatening overhang, dark gray and heavy with condensation. While it wasn't supposed to be a thunderstorm, Justin swore he could hear the ominous rumbles of thunder. There was definitely going to be a downpour sometime today, and they had been stupid enough to leave the umbrellas at the hotel. With the weather and it being a Monday in Washington, D.C. as the elections were getting underway, so it was pretty clear of tour groups and generally pretty empty other than a few elderly groups making their daily strolls. 

They could see the gates, but were just out of sight of the guards.

He tried to keep his composure, shoving his hands into his pockets to hide the shaking, but he knew he must be visibly nervous. His knees were shaking so much that he almost tripped over his own feet. He could turn back now before he broke the law. Why was he even doing this anyways this was ridiculously stupid! This type of stuff only happened in stories to heroes, not to podcasting fathers!

He was broken out of his thoughts at the touch of his father’s hand on his shoulder. He looked back at him and saw the same fear he felt etched across his dad’s face. His brothers stopped as well, both of them sharing the same expression. He put his hand on his dad’s, giving a tight squeeze.

“For our family.” The weight lifted slightly as he shared this thought with them, but his heart was still pounding like a drum. 

“Remember, character voices,” Griffin said. “I know that’s a huge joke and all, but this isn’t a joke.”

“He’s talking to you, Dad,” Justin said, trying to keep his insides from spilling out with fear.

They approached the gate, which was guarded by two police vehicles and two more visibly armed guards. One turned towards them as they approached, her hand twitching towards her gun momentarily before reaching for her radio instead. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, gentlemen, you can’t go through here,” she said. “This is a private entrance reserved for the IPRE crew. There’s another entrance down the block for White House grounds visitors.”

“This is our entrance! We’re literally the _owners_ of this ship!” Griffin said, mimicking Lup’s drawl and body language as best he could.

The guard’s brow furrowed in confusion and then the recognition hit her. “Miss Lup? But… what- what happened to you? To all of you?”

“Magic, my dude,” Justin said as Taako, coming up to Griffin and leaning on his shoulder. “We tried doing a cool little trick and well, now we look like these losers. Pretty sure Lulu messed up because we’re stuck as a bunch of middle-aged white dudes now.”

“I didn’t mess up, dorkus, that was all you. You’re the transmutation wizard!” 

“And you’re the dingus that told me to use the knock-off ingredients!” Justin looked back to the guard. “If you want, I can explain what happened in-depth because I have a brain that isn’t messed up by love makes her want to bang a man who wears jeans to bed.”

The guard covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Well, I thought-”

“Personally, I like how I look!” Travis interrupted, puffing out his chest to seem more like Magnus. “My hair has never been so clean!” 

“I’m taller!” Clint added, his voice rasping with fake age. “And thinner! I don’t like the lack of beard though.”

“Uh, but I thought you all and Mr. Barry and Ms. Lucretia went downtown for the day. That’s what you told me when you left,” the guard said. 

“W-Well, we came back! That’s our ship, isn’t it?” Travis asked, pointing to the ship. 

“I- yes it is.” 

“So can we go through?” Clint asked. “I may look and feel taller but I’m still…” he did some fake counting on his fingers. “What’s old for humans?” 

The guard laughed lightly. “No, I believe you. You don’t need to explain the magic to me; the bond stuff already confuses me enough.” 

She waved to the other guard, who -after announcing through his radio that they were entering the premise- pressed a button that opened the gate. As it swung open, Justin wasn’t sure if he was feeling a sense of relief or even more fear than before. They walked through the gates like it was nothing and Justin made sure to send a wink towards the male guard standing there, glad to see that he smiled slightly. 

For a good five minutes, they didn’t say a word. What was there to say? The Starblaster was mere feet away and they had just snuck onto federal property. The Starblaster from their Dungeons and Dragons podcast sitting on the lawn of the White House.

“This is fucking insane.” he whispered. 

“Oh yeah.” Clint took a step forward, his foot hovering mere inches above the boardwalk. “Should we do this?” 

In answer, a drop of rain visibly landed on his head, and then another, and another until a complete downpour was coming down on them within a matter of seconds.

“Inside!” Griffin said, shoving past Travis to get to the warmth of the ship. Justin quickly followed, barely registering that he was boarding the ship until he was inside. Although they had only been in the rain for a few seconds, they were dripping all over the floor. 

“Whoops,” Clint said. “Magic would be pretty useful right now, wouldn’t it?” 

Justin nodded and looked around. “Check this out.” 

He walked up to the wall and traced his fingers over what seemed to be scratches in the wall. For a second, he thought they were from the battles or from rogue magic, but they were too deliberate. 

“They’re tally marks. They must be how many cycles they’ve been on!"

“Well let’s get counting!” Clint said, starting at the top left. Justin kneeled down to begin counting, but before he could do anything, something small and goopy rammed into his chest with the force of a train. He fell on his back, the air escaping his lungs in a mere second as the thing crawled across his chest, it’s… tentacles crawling across his face and torso almost searching for something. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t seem to push the thing off him or see what it was through the prisma colored lights shining directly into his eyes. 

“What the hell?!” 

“Fisher, what are you-” He heard quick footsteps stop suddenly. “Who are you?! How did you get on the ship?!” 

The thing flew off of Justin’s chest, allowing him to sit up and see who had entered the room and what had been trapping him on the ground. And the instant he did, it was like he had been knocked on his back again. They were right there, Fisher and Davenport, looking exactly how they had looked on the screens, but here, in the flesh. 

Fisher was almost exactly as Griffin described it. A jellyfish filled with multi-colored lights, as if it were filled to the brim with galaxies and nebulas. Anytime that Justin had seen it on the news, it had been glowing a faint blue or purple, but it was currently filled with a light crimson and green light. The lights in question were pulsing to the beat of a faint drumbeat sounding from within the fish.

And Davenport… he was just as he thought he would look. Cropped red hair slicked back, a well-groomed mustache of the same thickness and color as the top of his head. His eyes were the most piercing blue that Justin had ever seen, and while he had seen them full of laughter on the news, any joy was buried under layers of anger and confusion. 

“D-Don’t worry, Cap’n!” Griffin stuttered, just barely able to pull off Lup’s voice. “We just-” his voice cracked, but he coughed to cover the change in pitch. “We just decided to come back ‘cause of the rain, no big deal.”

Davenport furrowed his brow, his wand lowering slightly. “Lup? Why do you guys look like that?” 

“Magic gone wrong,” Justin said, getting to his feet and trying to keep his face as ‘Taako’ as he could (although his muscles were straining to break into a smile and a look of pure fear all at the same time). “Tried an illusion spell to hide from the press and it kinda worked but got all fucky and hasn’t worn off yet.”

“I thought Barry said that we wouldn’t use magic unless absolutely necessary?” Davenport asked. “You know, with the whole plane of magic in this reality being disconnected from the material plane.”

“That’s what I told them!” Travis roared as Magnus. “But they were like ‘We’re only going to be here for a year. Might as well do what we can while we’re here!’” 

Davenport blinked but then shrugged, but as he was about to put away his wand, Fisher grabbed his hand with a tentacle, the red light intensifying ever-so-slightly. 

“What’s up with him?” Clint asked as himself. 

And then a lot of things happened at once. Justin saw a red blur as Fisher tackled his father to the ground and then felt heavy iron chains wrap around his wrists. He looked back at his brothers and saw the same manacles appear around their wrists as Davenport cast some sort of spell. The Captain opened his mouth to say something, but then six people soaked to the bone came running into the ship. 

There were a chorus of voices, mostly consisting of the phrase, “What the fuck is going on?!” but over it all, Justin heard Taako yell, “Cap you’re not going to fucking believe this!”

A book bounced off of Davenport’s head and fell at Justin’s feet. He looked down and lost his breath for the third time in the past few minutes. 

It was the _Here There Be Gerblins_ graphic novel and currently, two of the people on the cover as well as their compatriots had their focuses of power pointed at his family’s heads. 

Well… shit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go! Now from here on out, there will be less of a cohesive story line than there already has been (which isn't saying much). All chapters except two will be one-shots between different McElroys, their respective characters and maybe a special guest star. So look forward to that!
> 
> If you guys want to help out the process, something that you guys could do is act like I'm the brothers and send me questions. Send me those Yahoos and questions looking for advice for the modren era. I won't say why, but this will help so much for future chapters.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, my tumblr is dontbugmeimantisocial. Stay at home, wash your hands. Have a good day!
> 
> Stay safe, wash your hands, have a good day!

**30 Minutes Ago**

* * *

“That was… horrible. And that's coming from life on 69 different worlds,” Lucretia said, rubbing her eyes. “I mean… Merle, I know you like plants but you didn’t have to do a strip dance for the hydrangeas.” 

“They asked me-”

“We’re in a public space, old man! A _nationally renowned_ public state, I may add!” Magnus cried, pointing to the sign that read ‘United States Botanical Garden’. “You don’t strip in a public place! And that’s coming from me!” 

“You’re lucky I had an extra jacket or you would have been caught, kicked out and sent to a nearby mental facility,” Barry said. 

“Imagine the headline if this goes public!” Lup laughed, holding up a hand. “‘Old Alien Sent to Mental Facility for Plant Fetish.’”

"Humans are weird… you never allow anything," Merle grumbled. "All these rules against nudity and 'public decency'. Why don't you guys just relax and let everything hag loose?"

"Not everyone has things that should hang loose..."

"Don't complain about humans because two of us are humans and it's pretty clear that EVERYONE on this planet is human," Magnus said. “I’m loving it! Everyone is kinda like me, although some look pretty bad… I saw one guy with tattoos all across his body and it was not a good look on him.”

Taako groaned, pulling his hat over his eyes. 

"The animal planet was easier than a planet of humans. There they at least had a sense of fashion."

“They didn’t wear anything on that planet.”

“Exactly my point, my large friend.” 

Lucretia rolled her eyes, biting back her own grin.

“Well, speaking of headlines and humans,” she said, raising a hand as if they were in class. “I was hoping we could go to the national museum of the history of this country. I want to learn a little more about the history of this race.” 

Lup threw an arm around her shoulder. “Of course we can, ‘Creti. You deserve it after having to deal with those security guys.”

“Ugh, they weren’t guys, Lup. They were assholes.” Taako flipped his hair over his shoulder. “Didn’t show us an ounce of respect. Pretty racist and homophobic if you ask me.”

“Is everything that slightly inconveniences you on this planet homophobic?” Merle asked. 

“Yup,” The entire group answered at the same time.

“Nice,” Merle replied, making them all laugh.

As they made their way through downtown, it got slightly more crowded and unfortunately, this meant that there were fans, protestors, and reporters following their every step. And while Taako and Lup would normally hold up miles of traffic for photos, even they had grown tired of the constant badgering of the public. But if they reacted or answered their comments, they’d be on the news which would bring even more trouble, and then Davenport would be mad at them. They loved their captain, but he could be scary when he was angry. 

“Can I get your autograph please?!”

“What’s it like in space?!”

“Mr. Taako, Miss Lup! Could you please comment on what it’s like being a humanoid species?!"

“You need to leave now! This isn’t your home! You and your crew should leave!” 

Lup stiffened beside them all, her hand reaching for her wand, and she whispered. “Hey, can someone please help me with a pretty large illusion spell really quick. Just to hide us and help us get away?”

“I got you,” Barry said, drawing his own. “As soon as we get the spell up, run to that bookstore we passed by a few minutes ago."

The group turned a corner, and without missing a beat, the experienced couple cast invisibility over the group. The group behind them squawked in surprise, but they didn't stay to see what would happen. Within seconds, they were all across the street at a store called 'Barnes and Nobles' that had countless books stacked in the windows.

Once they were safely out of view of the windows, Barry and Lup released the spell, looking a little drained from the effort of the spell.

"Now that was homophobic and racist," Luo said, brushing her hair back.

"No shit," Taako said, walking up to the window slowly. "They're all still out there looking for us."

"We'll stay in here until they're gone." Lucretia looked around at the thousands of books around her and smiled. "This isn't a museum but it'll do."

She began to look around and slowly, the others did too. Lup ran into Merle flipping through different bibles and religious books, occasionally letting out yells of laughter for apparently no reason. She saw her brother pulling different cookbooks down and checking for anything new and interesting that could beat the food from Tesseralia. Lucretia was hovering around the history books and journals, not sure if she wanted to buy one or not.

Lup was about to check out the science books but then Barely came flying around the corner, his glasses askew on his face and a book clasped in his arms.

"Bar, you ok-"

"Look." He shoved a book into her hands. It was a heavy hard-cover book that was gorgeously illustrated with an image of a woman holding a glowing golden orb as she fought a ginormous giant wearing a skull as a helmet. At the top in large white letters were the words 'Player's Handbook'.

"What, is it for a game or something?" she asked, turning it over to study it.

Barry shook his head, still out of breath and opened the book, pointing frantically at one of the pages. She looked at it and felt her heart skip a beat.

"Liches?! How do they know about liches?!" she hissed, her eyes skimming over the page. "The plane of magic isn't connected to this plane!"

"It gets weirder." Barry flipped to the back. "It has every single one of our spells. Not just ours, but Dav and Lucretia and Merle. There's also stuff on races other than humans; dragon-born, elves, orcs." 

"I mean… we've had cycles like this; where they know magic similar or identical to ours. Yeah, it’s weird that they know about it with next-to-no contact with the Plane of Magic, but they’re connected pretty close to the Plane of Thought, which is closer to the Plane of Magic. I’d say they learned from that plane about the other plane." Lup closed the book. "We’ll tell Davenport about this, and then we can study the Planes and figure it out. But I’m a genius, so I’m right. Don’t think too much about-"

"LU-U-U-U-P!" 

She heard her brother scream from the other side of the store. Barry and Lup shared a glance and rushed over to where Taako's voice had originated from. They found him in the graphic novel section, staring at two books in his hands.

"Look at this shit!" her brother screeched, shoving the book into his hands. She looked at the cover and saw the words 'The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins' but her attention was drawn from that by the man on the front stabbing a knife into a table covered in gold.

It was Magnus.

"They made me green!" Taako wailed, opening the book to the first page and pointing at a green elven figure. Under his finger was a scroll with the name 'Taako' scrawled across it. 

Lucretia, Magnus and Merle came running into the aisle, having also heard the shout and when they saw the panel, they looked almost scared. When Magnus saw himself in drawing form, he snatched the other book (something called ‘Murder on the Rockport Limited) away from Taako and yelped in surprise. 

“How is this possible? They got me almost hair-for-hair!” He showed the group the cover and sure enough, it was pretty close to life. “It takes forever just to do a small project- we’ve been here for only a few months a-and they made a comic-”

"Wait, that's me!" Merle said, pointing to the bearded man in both drawings. 

"We need to get this to Davenport." Lucretia said.

They ran out of the shop, ignoring the yells from the cashiers as they stole one of their books. The press group was waiting around the corner, but Magnus simply used himself as a human shield, barreling through a small portion of the crowd and yelling at anyone who got in their way.

About halfway to the Starblaster, it began to pour rain, weighing down their clothes and sending splashes of water up with every step. Lup was half-inclined to start complaining about how this weather would ruin her hair and clothing, but she had the feeling that this comic book was more important than a pair of boots that she had spent years molding to her feet before the mission.

The guards at the gate were relaxing in their cars, but as they approached, the female guard got out of the car, her hand on her gun. When she saw who was approaching, her eyes went wide and she straightened up, the grip on her gun becoming tighter.

"Miss Lup? Taak- How is this possible?" she asked. "You came in earlier. You two, Mr. Magnus and Mr. Merle came earlier. You looked like four other men."

"What are you talking about?" Lup asked.

"It's us! No one else can be us!" Taako said. To prove his point, he sent up a few sparks out of his hand.

The guards eyes widened. "Oh shit, we have a security breach."

Her partner leapt out the car and prepared to grab his radio, but Lucretia held out her hand, casting Charm Person on the two of them.

"Forget about those men. We gave them access earlier. Don't worry about it," she commanded. "Now let us through."

"We won't worry about it. Go on through."

The gate barely opened before the six of them ran through, almost slipping on the wet asphalt. Lup shared a glance with Lucretia and both knew they were thinking the same thing.

They rushed up the Starblaster and saw three men shackled, an older man pinned to the ground by Fisher and Davenport pointing his wand at them.

"What the fuck is going on?!"

"Cap you're not going to fucking believe this!"

* * *

Clint's chest still hurt. Fisher wasn't very large but was somehow as dense as a normal person, making the impact it had made on his chest earlier as painful as a tackle by an NFL player in full gear. The space jellyfish in question had been sent to another room as he wouldn’t stop trying to attack his family. 

His sons were sitting next to him on the couch, all pale-faced. The crew was in front of them whispering between each other and occasionally looking over.

He still couldn't believe it. They were right there. 

Lucretia, Magnus and Merle looked pretty much how he imagined, their hair and build being about what he expected. Lucretia was slim, just barely taller than Griffin, with flawless dark skin. Her pure white hair half braided in cornrows, the other half frizzy from the humidity. 

Magnus was built like a body-builder, which made sense. His well-kept beard, cropped hair and of course, the best sideburns Clint had ever seen, were all the same shade of auburn. 

Merle had a bushy gray beard braided with a few different types of flowers, a surprisingly full head of gray hair and a pair of square-rimmed glasses perched on his large nose. His face was lined with age and his eyes reflected those years plus more that weren’t visible.

Barry was just about as average as they had guessed, although he looked less like Tom Arnold and more like Randall Park.

But Taako and Lup were the biggest shock of all to see.

In the podcast, every single one of the character’s appearances was an abstract concept unless someone said otherwise. The only things about these two were that they were elves, they were twins, and they walked the fine line between fashionistas and fashion disasters. This abstractness had somehow translated visually into their appearance, making everything about them difficult to describe or even process. It wasn’t that they were difficult to look at, just that when he did, Clint seemed to see dozens of versions of Taako and Lup all at once. The closest he could put it is if he were looking at a piece of fabric that changed color and pattern in the light.

The most defining features about them were their coffee-brown skin, long pointed ears and large almond eyes. Their forms weren’t entirely identical either; Lup was slimmer, with defined cheekbones while Taako had a little more muscle on his bones. 

“What do we do?” Justin whispered. 

“We sit here quietly and cooperate,” Clint whispered back. “We’re kinda knee-deep in this already.”

“No shit dad!” Griffin hissed.

The crew turned around at the noise and Davenport walked forward. Even as he was sitting, Davenport still had to look slightly up to make eye contact with Clint.

"Okay. Who are you?" he asked.

“My name is Clint McElroy,” he said. “These are my sons Justin, Travis, and Griffin.” 

“Wait, McElroy? M-C-E-L-R-O-Y? Clint, Travis, Justin, and Griffin?” Lup walked forward and shoved the book under his nose. “You guys wrote this shit? Why’d you make my brother green?! Did you make me green?!” 

“Uh…” he looked at his sons for help. They had discussed that if they found out about their work, it’d be best not to say anything. Timeline shit and all that. 

“Different people who wrote that book,” Justin said. “I share the exact same name as a comic artist in California and a popular journalist in New York. Our names are pretty common, both first and last.”

Lup and the rest of the crew seemed pretty convinced and backed away, but Clint saw Merle raise an eyebrow in his direction.

“Alright then.” Lucretia raised an eyebrow too. “How did you get through the gates? The President made it clear that no one but us would have access to the ship.”

Davenport pointed back. “What she asked. When I first came across you, you were all making perfect impressions of my crew.” 

“It’s just a talent we have,” Travis insisted. “I started improv at a young age and learned from there. These three-”

“Cut the bullshit.” Merle said. “Capn’, if I may do the honors?” 

Dav sighed. “Yes, fine, but please no theat-”

Merle whipped out a small leather bound book, opening to a page marked with a golden bookmark and announced, “I CAST ZONE OF TRUTH!” just as Griffin whispered, “Ah, beans."

A pink aura expanded from where Merle stood, encasing all eleven of them and then disappearing. Clint didn’t feel any different, but based on how often he had used the spell, he knew that someone in the room was going to be spilling their guts at the next question. 

Davenport nodded in satisfaction and turned back to them. “Now, as I asked before, how did you all sneak into the ship?”

Clint felt the answer bubble up in his stomach and spilled out before he could stop it. “We used your voices we used with you on the guards and snuck our way in.”

His sons looked at him in utter disbelief, to which he returned a helpless gaze. He had failed the wisdom saving throw. 

“What do you mean voices?” Barry asked. “Like, the ones you’re using right now?”

Davenport shook his head. “No. When they came in here, they sounded like you, Lup, Taako, and Magnus. Clint didn’t have a voice other than his natural one.”

“Is the hot one telling the truth about improv?” Taako piped up.

“Oh you mean Travis?” Clint said. “No, he’s-” 

“He’s the hot one?” Justin asked as his younger brothers snickered beside him.

“Yeah, he’s just my type. Pulls off that makeup real nice, even with it smudged and stuff. Not only that but his-” Taako slapped a hand over his mouth, his cheeks flushing before he ran out of the room as Lup howled with laughter. “MORE LIKE ZONE OF FUCK YOU MERLE!”

Davenport coughed, hiding a laugh, and turned to Clint. “So, if it wasn’t improv, what was it?” 

“We play you guys as characters!” It wasn’t Clint this time. The entire room turned to look at Griffin, who was visibly trying to keep his mouth shut. He shoved his mouth into his shoulder and bit on his fingers as he tried to keep himself from talking further, but physical resistance was nothing against the power of good old magic and some bad luck.

“We run a podcast called ‘The Adventure Zone’ and we play table-top-roleplaying-games on that show. Our characters are you guys. Justin plays Taako, Travis plays Magnus, my dad plays Merle and I play everyone else. By everyone else I mean any person who isn't them, and in this room, I play Lup, Lucretia, Davenport and Barry. That’s how we know your voices and your mannerisms- we built you guys from the ground up starting with an idea and a stupid name in Taako's case. Also, we are the authors of that book that you just threw at Davenport as well as its sequel, but we you shouldn't read it for two reasons. One: our writing sucks and people are going to argue but I'm on a roll of truth right now and I felt like doing a little self-depreciation joke. And two: All of the stuff in it is about future events that are vital pieces of your journey and if you learned any of it, it could royally fuck up the timeline and ruin any chances at not only your survival but also the survival of any plane that has ever been absorbed by the Hunger.”

The room was silent as Griffin took a long, deep breath, settling back into the couch, his face somehow even paler than it was before. Davenport blinked and looked at Merle. “Is the zone down?” Merle shook his head, his eyes locked on Clint. Clint tried to read the expression on his face but all he could discern was complete and utter confusion.

"What do you mean you built us'?" Barry asked. "I remember a lot and I certainly don't remember meeting you guys. Unless you guys are God?"

"It's like how God created us, or whatever force you believe in," Clint said, staring Merle in the eyes. "You never met them, but they created you, wrote your story. We're your authors."

"So you guys are God."

"They 'aint no God to me," Merle muttered.

"You know what, that's fair. How about this: you guys are technically fan fiction writers. But you're adding things to our story that are in your past, but our future, so you're writing a prequel to a sequel or something like that?" Lup chuckled. "This is so freaky... wait, what am I saying. Out of everything that's happened, I'm surprised it took this long to find a cycle like this. However, this has gotta be hella freaky for you, hasn't it?"

"Yes it is," Travis said. "Like meeting your idols and your long-lost family all at the same time."

Davenport sighed and waved his hand. The shackles around their wrists disappeared in a puff of smoke. "We're going to… talk this through. You four just stay here. The rest of you, let’s talk on the deck. Lup, go grab Taako." 

“It’s pouring rain outside!” Lup whined. 

“We can use umbrellas,” Lucretia. “You know, the ones you and Taako have been collecting for the past five years?” 

“Oh yeah those…” 

* * *

“So what now, Cap’n?” Barry asked once they were all outside on the deck. The bond engines hummed quietly above them, spinning ever-so-slightly as the wind and rain buffeted it to the side. Thankfully this thing was built for planar travel, so a bit of rain wouldn't damage or move it more than a few correctable millimeters. 

Davenport sighed, glancing back at the family on the couch, all of them whispering among each other. “Well, we’re not going to report them if we don’t want the press on our backs. And I’m okay with that. But their truth is… I need more of an explanation than what we were just given.”

“We can trust them then,” Magnus said. “I know some of you might not, but I do. They seem like genuinely great guys and it’s obvious that they’re one of the closer families that we’ve met.”

“What do you mean by that, Mags?” Barry asked. 

“They did this together. They snuck onto federal land and onto our ship together.” He shrugged. “That's pretty ballsy for humans. The only people I’ve ever met other than these guys with bravery to do that are Lup and Taako.”

“We don’t know their intentions for doing that though,” Taako said. “Like, Lup and I don’t do that type of stuff just because we're bored… anymore.”

“Doing it out of boredom is child's play, but it's in our past! We're better, more mature elves now who would never do something like break the law for shits and giggles.” Lup agreed. "But we still do it on occasion. As you know, we've only done that stuff recently so that we could get information on a situation that we deemed to be dangerous enough to risk our hides for that cycle. Now normally that information isn't something that can be obtained by looking at the newspaper. Even then, we only do it with the Captain's permission because, no offense, not only are we the stealthiest out of all of you. Those four didn't seem very stealthy, so they did this knowing they'd probably get caught but did it anyways, suggesting they did it for a cause. Magnus, why do you do reckless, dangerously stupid things that usually get you killed?"

"Because I want to protect those I love."

Lucretia nodded, catching onto what Magnus and Lup were saying. "So if these four really did create us, then they probably projected some of themselves onto us. If that's the case, and they really are anything like us, they were only doing it because they wanted to protect their loved ones by getting information that they had no other way of getting."

Barry whistled. "They're just four normal, middle-aged humans with no weaponry or protection. They got in here with their voices and some good acting just so they could protect their families... that's bravery if I've ever seen it." He looked at Merle standing beside him under a green umbrella decorated to look like a frog. “You’ve been uncharacteristically… quiet. You good, Merle?” 

The crew looked at their eldest member, who had his free hand stuffed gripped tightly around his bible. His brow was furrowed and there were too many emotions on his face to get a proper read on how he felt. 

Merle sighed, sounding almost dejected. “Well, I just found out that my whole life is a story made by some guys. It’s almost like meeting God. Puts my whole faith out of whack, doesn’t it?” 

“Hell no it doesn’t!” Barry argued. “Pan is still Pan. You did that Zone of Truth earlier, which is magic that comes from Pan. The Plane of Magic isn’t connected here, so that means that He's with you. Pure magic might not be here, Pan has and always will be with you, Merle."

"That's coming from the body-fucker," Taako said, get an elbow in the ribs from his sister and body-fucker in question.

“What Magnus said. Gods don’t just abandon you without cause, and usually that cause is Hunger-sized,” Lucretia put a hand on his shoulders and squeezed gently, giving him a tender, knowing smile. “He’s still with you through all this time and hardship.”

Lup cracked a grin. “Besides, I have a feeling that these clowns are just as wrapped up in all of this as we are in whatever this cycle is. I don’t think they knew what their story would do when they made it. Like they said, they ‘created’ us for a show for a game.” 

Merle nodded. “But still… iIf they… they already know everything about us and our story.”

There was a moment of silence and then Taako asked, “Do you think they know the end of that story?” 

* * *

They walked back into the room to hear the four arguing about… something.

"We're not eating that spaghetti for a third time!" Griffin said. "It's hard enough eating it once, let alone three times!"

"It's for the bit, Grif!” Travis argued back.

“I gotta agree with Griffin; that stuff is hard to get down,” Clint said. 

“Hey, shut up,” Justin said, gesturing to the crew. 

The four men sat down on the couch again, looking just a little embarrassed at their antics and argument. 

“We discussed it, and we’re not going to report you,” Davenport said. “Too much hassle for both parties.” 

“Hey, parties like Dungeons and-” Griffin got cut off by an elbow in the stomach. 

“Not the time, Grif, even with the Zone,” Justin said, rubbing his elbow. 

“However,” Davenport continued, “we want more answers. More than what you gave us.”

“Why you were dumb enough to do this in the first place, for example,” Lup chimed in. 

There wasn’t even a fight to keep the secret. Griffin’s face relaxed as he succumbed to the spell with ease. “You see, we know about the Hunger and the cycles, so we wanted to know what you knew so we could keep our families safe when the Hunger comes in a year.”

The entire crew took a step back, their faces registering with shock and then guilt and finally understanding. Yes, they had discussed this potentially being their motivator just a second ago, but hearing it confirmed really solidified that these men would do anything for those they loved.

“You have families?” Lucretia asked. "More than just the four of you?

“They’re my family,” Clint said. “My sons. I’ve got five grandkids, four from Trav and Justin, one from Griffin. Each of them also has a lovely wife that I love as much as I love them. They’re all I have left.”

“Do they know you’re doing this?” 

“Yup,” Justin said, popping the 'p'. “They’re not happy with it, but our wives agreed that if we could find out what cycle you guys are on, it’ll make things so much safer and easier for us once the Hunger does come.”

“Why will it make things easier?” Barry asked. “You three can’t stop the Hunger.”

“I’d tell you, but with the Zone up, I’d probably say too much and end up just making a mess of the timelines. I’m sure that you guys know what it’s like to regret interfering when you didn’t need to,” Griffin said. “But I will tell the truth, I promise on my wife and child.”

Davenport instantly nodded at Merle, who waved his hand and dropped the spell. The pink aura flashed around the room again and this time, Clint felt like someone who had been holding onto his voice box for the last five minutes finally let go. 

“If we know what Cycle you’re in, then we know what kind of… abilities you guys bring to the table,” Griffin explained. “You have the Light, so we know the Hunger won’t add our reality to its collection. But knowing the Cycle will let us understand what has happened and when other things will happen.” 

“What kind of things?” Taako asked. “‘Cause if I get a hot boyfriend, I’d like to know. That’s kinda important.”

Justin looked at the other four for permission, who shrugged in response. “Yeah, you do. Not telling you who, what or when for timeline reasons.”

Taako pumped a fist. “Finally I can rub it in your face this time, Lup!” 

“I got an idea,” Clint said. “Let’s make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Barry asked. 

“All of us have questions that the others want answers to, right?” he said. “Well, my deal is that we each answer them to the best of our abilities over the course of the next, what, eight months?”

Davenport nodded, thinking it over. “Okay. Deal.” 

Clint sighed in relief, but immediately tensed up again as Merle approached, his face still as unreadable as a blank stone wall. His beady green eyes looked him up and down, assessing who was in front of him.

“I got my first question right here, sonny boy,” he said, his eyes narrowing up at the younger man. “Why. The hell. Did you make me so short? Huh?! Kid over there made Magnus a giant and Taako gorgeous to look at, and you gave me these!” He pointed to his stubby, hairy legs. "The hell's up with that?!

Clint blinked and chuckled. “I-I didn’t think about it? I kinda just thought that a dwarf would be cool! Dark vision, mining, uh, cool lore?”

“What the hell does that even mean?!” Merle complained.

"Ignore him, he's going through some personal problems," Lucretia said.

"Anyways, I'm sure you guys will want to know what cycle we're on?" Davenport prompted.

"Oh, yeah!" Travis said. "That'd be awesome to-"

"SIXTY NINE!" Taako and Lup cheered.

"No fucking way!" Griffin said, letting out a bark of laughter. Justin opened his mouth to say something but gurgled and started to laugh, any words he tried to form drowning under his laughter.

"We're Cycle 69?! That's the fucking best! We win life!" Travis choked out before collapsing into a fit of laughter as well. Clint chuckled but didn't laugh as much as his younger sons. He understood the joke well enough, but could say with confidence that he was much more mature than them.

Lup, Taako and Magnus started a conversation with the three once they had caught their breath. Lucretia and Merle were sent to talk to the guards, who were still under Taako's spell.

Half an hour later, the rain had lightened up enough for them to leave. As the crew said their goodbyes to the McElroys, Davenport came up to Clint.

"We'll be in touch," he said, giving a firm handshake.

Clint shook back. "Yeah, I know. Just don't, you know, make it too public. We've avoided the press so far, it'd be pretty bad if we broke that streak now."

"Oh come on!" Taako said. "A little press never hurt anyone! This'll be fun!"


	5. Chapter 5

It was nearly a month before Justin heard anything from any of the crew. In that time, he and his brothers had decided that the best thing they could do to keep income flowing was to just move on like normal. Pretend that nothing happened and live normal lives again. For a while, it was working. They didn’t hear anything from the press, from the fans, or even from their agents. Anyone who seemed slightly involved in their existence had came to the conclusion that they had better things to do than to pester them with questions and to simply let them live their lives again. So they got back to recording episodes of their shared and individual podcasts, setting up sponsorships one at a time, and even interacting on social media again.

He was in the middle of an episode of MbMbaM when he heard from any of the IPRE again. 

“‘Sup, Kemosabe?” He screamed in surprise, the laughing fit he had just been having catching in his throat and causing him to choke. 

“Juice, you okay over there?” Travis asked.

“Yeah, just give me a second,” He coughed, picking up the mic that had been knocked off his desk in his attempt to breathe and looking around. There wasn’t anyone in the room and he was sure that voice had come from somewhere nearby.

“Yo, in the picture frame.” Justin looked back at his screen and saw Taako’s face in the plexiglass, looking as if someone had overlayed his reflection over Justin’s.

“Taako? How are you in my computer? Did you guys finally figure out this world’s technology?” 

“Wait, Taako’s talking to you?!” Griffin asked. “Why- and how is in a family photo?!”

“Is Magnus with him?! I wanted to talk with him!”

“Listen, I’ll call you guys back; we can put in a Money Zone break here,” Justin said, hanging up before his brothers could protest. 

“Was that your bros?” Taako asked. “What were you doing without me?”

Justin shrugged. “Work-related stuff, I’ll talk to you about it later. How are you in my screen?!”

Taako leaned against the side of the screen, trying to look cool but looking more like a low-quality image of himself that was covered in Justin’s fingerprints and food crumbs. “Cool magic thing we got on another world. Lets me talk to anyone I want to as long as they got a reflective surface near them. You probably didn’t write that in your little story, did you?”

“No, we-” 

“Exactly. Now, I’m not doing anything this week and I get bored easily. Lucretia, Magnus, and Merle are somewhere on the plane, Dav, Lup and Barry are studying the Light with the government and you’re going to show me some food from this universe.”

“I’m sorry, what gives you that impression?”

“You and your bros were talking about food, and so far, I haven’t found anything new or exciting,” Taako explained calmly. “The most exciting thing I’ve eaten so far has been something called lasagna? Not only did that put me right to sleep, but when I used that internet thing, I could only find recipes of it that came with a weird orange cat named Garfield!” 

Justin chuckled, biting back a joke about the notorious deals warlock that loomed in Taako’s future. “Well, if you can’t take the Starblaster, you won’t be able to make it today. Swing by tomorrow and I’ll have the kitchen ready to bake in. Would you rather bake something or cook something?”

“I don’t care as long as it’s not chicken. Some fucker decided to undercook our meal and we all got food poisoning two weeks ago.” 

“That’s understandable. So how about scrambled eggs?”

“How dare you assume that I don’t know how to make scrambled eggs. Butter only, stir in the pan, not out, you heathen.”

Justin clapped, leaning back in his chair. “Thank God someone else on this plane agrees with me. Someday you have to bully my brothers into cooking like that.”

“Of course I will, but that’s a discourse for another time. Now that I’m thinking about it, give me something to bake, not to cook. I know almost all recipes by heart and I got that one cookbook that everyone recommended, Julius Kid or whatever.”

“Julia Child, and I’d also recommend ‘ _Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat’_ to teach you about how that stuff all works together as well ‘ _The Fannie Farmer Baking Book’_ ,” Justin said. 

Taako nodded, seeming to jot something down outside of the frame. “I’ll check those out some time but can I please know what we’re going to bake! Before Lup and Barry hear me and decide to come with. You do not want them in the kitchen while you’re cooking believe me.”

Justin nodded and then snapped his fingers. “Ever made macarons?”

“Mac-a-whats?”

“Oh-ho-ho, mon frere, this will be fun.”

* * *

The next day, Justin heard a pounding at the door and opened it to see not just Taako at the door, but also Lup and the most magnificent horse- no, binicorn he’d ever seen. That was saying something considering he had never seen a binicorn in real life.

“Garyl!” he exclaimed. 

“‘Sup, little man?” Garyl said. “Got any oats? I just ran for six hours straight with these two on my back.”

“I got oats, just not fantasy oats.”

“Lame,” Garyl said and dissolved away. Taako looked between the space where his steed had just been and Justin.

“How’d you know my horse?” he asked accusingly.

“Phantom steed. I used it in my podcast to make Garyl, but that’s not important. I thought you couldn’t use magic and that you weren’t coming, Lup.”

She shrugged. “Barry decided that he wanted to do some Light study alone and apparently Taako wanted to do some cooking stuff alone too. Had to make sure one of them didn’t get what they wanted.”

“As for the magic, the Starblaster isn’t exactly ‘stealthy’, like we all wanted. Garyl is low magic compared to the things I could do with a closer plane. So a Phantom Steed spell slot and a few invisiblities and we were on our way.”

“I don’t know enough about magic to argue with that. Come on in.” The Twins waltzed in, looking around the house in bemusement. 

“Oh yeah, so my wife Sydnee is at work today, so I got left with-” There was a blur of motion across the floor and suddenly two small forms were bouncing around Taako and Lup’s feet, reaching up and giggling with delight. “I got the kids today.”

“You made these little dudes?” Taako said, stepping carefully so he wouldn’t crush Cooper’s little feet. Lup scooped up his daughter before any more problems could arise, laughing as she grabbed at her ears. 

“Yup. These are my kids, Cooper and Charlie. Sweetheart, these are Daddy’s friends, Taako and Lup.”

Charlie laughed. “Your name is funny.”

“Well your face is funny, kid- don’t be so smug,” Taako said, sounding annoyed but Justin knew him well enough to know it was all a ruse. Lup let out a small yelp as Cooper gave one of her large hoop earrings a tug and quickly passed her over to Justin.

“Sorry about that. He likes to grab.” He looked at Cooper. “What do we say when we hurt someone, Coop?”

“Sowwy,” she said, sounding somewhat apologetic.

“Don’t sweat it, little lady. I’ve died plenty of times. That was nothing compared to that.”

“So quick rule for the kids, and I’m dead serious about this. No swearing, no insulting them, and please no dirty talk. Just restrain yourself to elementary cussing. Crud, darn, h-e-double-hockey-sticks,” Justin said, strapping Cooper into her high chair and giving her some peas. “And Taako, I know you like to pretend you hate kids, but if you want to insult them, do it without me in earshot or I’ll learn magic just to kick your booty so hard you won’t wake up until the next cycle. They’re the world to me and I don’t like people talking badly about them.”

“Fair enough. How the crap would you know that I’m like that with kids? Unless…” Taako asked, stealing one of Cooper’s peas and popping it into his own mouth.

Justin almost laughed at the irony of his statement, at the same time remembering his own antics against the boy detective of Faerun. “That’s my sexy little secret.”

Taako rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers, conjuring two aprons, one reading ‘Kiss the Chef’ and the other ‘Your opinion is not in the recipe’. He tossed the latter to Justin and tied the other around his waist.

“Are you going to get me one or am I gonna have to make one myself?” Lup asked, raising a hand.

“No. This is for me and Juice here,” Taako said, tying his hair into a tight bun. “I scheduled this, I arranged all of this, so you just sit there and look as pretty as you can be with the face of someone who kisses a man with the last name Bluejeans.”

“At least I have someone to kiss.” Lup stuck her tongue out at her brother, hopping onto the arm of the couch and entertaining Charlie with colorful sparks that she shot out of her fingertips. 

“Let’s get started with these mix-a-roons.”

“Macarons, specifically elderflowers. Elderberries are a type of blackberry, so these’ll be sweet and tart all at the same time, but not too much of either,” Justin said, laying out the ingredients in front of them. “Now, a macaron is a small cookie made of almond flour and merengue, but there’s normally a filling between the two cookies. Kinda like a sandwich. We’re going to make a normal, slightly citrusy cookie but use elderflower syrup and blackberries to make a jam filling rather than a ganache or a cream.”

“Can I help, Daddy?” Charlie asked from the floor, looking away from the sparks for half a second. 

“You can be their taste tester when it’s all done, how does that sound?” Lup said, conjuring an overly large chef’s hat and plopping it onto Charlie’s head. “For now, do you wanna see some more magic?”

“I wanna eat my peas!” Charlie whined. 

“Ha, you said peas,” Taako laughed.

Justin rolled his eyes. “Anywho, we gotta start by measuring the ingredients and sifting them together a few times.”

The process was quick work with Taako at his side. He didn’t appear to use any magic, but his hands weaved around the tools and ingredients with speeds unlike any Justin had ever seen before, sometimes even doing the step before Justin had even begun to explain it. At times, Taako would tell Justin what to do as he momentarily took control of the kitchen with a sort of confidence Justin wished he had. He now understood how this one elf could command a room of people who had been at each others throats for long enough to explain how to save the world.

“You sure you’re gonna be good without the recipe? We’re not even done with the meringue.”

Taako scoffed, absentmindedly folding the ingredients together. “Trust me, after 69 years of baking for the crew, you learn how to move fast and predict how things will go. If I know the beginning and the end, I can get there blindfolded.”

“What happened to your ears?” Charlie piped up from the counter. “They’re all pointy, did you pull them like Cooper pulled Miss. Lup’s? They’re very pretty.”

“Thanks. That’s one of the nicer things people have said about my ears. But here’s the thing, Miss. Justin Jr: You really wanna know what happened to my ears?” Taako asked, tapping her nose with a powder sugar-coated finger that she instantly tried to lick off. “My sister decided that it would be funny to glue a bunch of paper to my ears one time, and I was like ‘Heck no, Taako can’t be seen walking around like this!’ so I made them look like my ears and did the same to my sister.”

“I think I look hot with them.”

She giggled. “Daddy, can I do that to Cooper?”

“Nope, only adults can do that, sweetheart,” he said, starting to scoop the pink batter into a piping bag. 

“Do you do it to Uncle Travis and Uncle Griffin? It would make them prettier.” 

Justin laughed. “I mean you’re right, Charlie, but I think they’re very pretty without them. Instead, I just tease them with words.”

She seemed satisfied with the answer and turned back to Taako, who was in the middle of piping perfect circles of macaron batter onto the silicone mat.

“Why do you sound like my Daddy?”

The next filling came out more than a little crooked as Taako’s hands clenched around the bag. Lup snickered from the couch, but Justin could see a little panic in her eyes. In no way did any of the crew share the exact same voices with their ‘creators’, but there were noticeable similarities between their voices. Lup had said at one point that family’s behaviors had been projected onto them in one way or another, and that must have been true for how they all spoke too. Magnus had a bit of a gruffer voice than Travis (who had pretty much made his own voice Magnus’ voice). Merle’s voice had age that Clint had no way of creating or imitating. Taako’s voice was a bit lower than Justin had originally made it, but the all shared speech patterns that even a five-year old would pick up on. 

Justin cleared his throat. “Well, Charlie. It’s magic, like Miss. Lup was doing. He sounds like me because I can sound,” he changed up his voice, “like Mr. Taako.”

Charlie laughed. “Can you do Miss. Lup?” 

“Er, well no, but if you ask Uncle Griffin very nicely when he comes over next time, he can not only do Miss. Lup, but most of her friends.” He felt somewhat satisfied with the fact that he would be bothering his brother with such a strange task.

“Hey, Charlie, check this out.” Lup turned the attention back on herself by summoning a small purple flame in her hand. Charlie’s eyes went wide and she screeched in delight as the fire began to dance around her fingers.

“Can I hold it?!” Charlie asked, reaching her hands up towards the flame.

“I don’t know, may she?” Lup looked at Justin and mouthed ‘It’s safe, trust me’. And Justin did. Griffin had made it clear that Lup was the most powerful evocation wizard to ever exist, so if she said a fire was safe, he believed her. But still, he was about to allow this literally explosive person give his daughter fire to play with.

“Uh, Taako, why don’t you finish up here. I just want to supervise her,” Justin said. “When you’re done, pound them on the counter once or twice to get all excess air out of them. It’ll help them rise.”

Taako nodded, his concentration solely on the piping again. Justin slipped over next to Lup.

“Here, Juice. Just test it out real quick, so you know it’s safe. It's a little prestidigitation, so no real harm.” Lup held the fire over Justin’s hand and almost dropped it into his palms. He instinctively gasped at the sight of fire approaching his palms so quickly, but then he relaxed as he realized that this flame was almost cold. It felt like a slippery ice cube that wasn’t quite melted yet.

“Oh that’s weird…” he muttered. “Here, Charlie.”

Charlie almost snatched the flame away from him and laughed as she moved it from hand-to-hand. 

“Now remember, kiddo, only do this with purple fire that _I_ make. Never do it with any other kind of fire,” Lup instructed. “Even if Taako gives you purple fire, don’t take it. He doesn’t know anything about fire magic.”

“Yeah I do! I can make a pretty baller fireball!” Taako said indignantly. “Remember that one I made for the bonfire on the beach?!”

“He’s a liar. He could only do that because I told him how to.” Lup took the fire back from Charlie as it grew dim, reigniting it with a snap of her fingers.

“Didn’t know you were so good with kids, Lup,” Justin said, walking over to Cooper and helping her finish up her peas.

“You don’t even know me, Justin,” she said. “Your brother may have… written our stories, but we’re still our own people. And I’m great with kids because someone in this family had to be.”

“I’m great with kids!” Taako said, banging the trays on the counter. “Remember that team Magnus trained on Tesseralia?! I helped them out so much! They won that whole season because of yours truly!”

“No, if I remember correctly, you two were travelling the world for food while Magnus trained them and Merle was in the church,” Justin said. “Magnus’ speech inspired them to win. And don’t even try to pull the whole thing from the conservatory. Every single one of those quotes existed on your original world and exists here, so you didn’t teach those kids anything.” 

Taako’s mouth was gaping like a fish and Lup was doubled over in silent laughter.

“He put you on blast!” Charlie giggled, not even noticing that the flame had gone out.

“That I did,” Justin said proudly, pressing two macarons together and handing it to Taako. Taako snatched it out of his hand and popped it into his mouth and for a second, Justin thought he had simply passed out. His eyes glazed over and his arms went slightly limp. He chewed slowly and thoughtfully, processing what he was eating without saying a word. 

“Whoa, holy- I haven’t seen him look like this in a hot minute!” Lup grabbed her own macaron and popped it into her mouth, moaning in delight as the treat entered her system. “Justin… Justin, these are amazing.”

He started a little at the compliment. Knowing Lup, she wasn’t one for compliments, especially on other peoples food. “Oh, well, thanks. I’m honored that you two think of them so highly.” 

“Are you kidding? This is amazing! It’s genius!” Lup made another, this time studying it carefully before eating it. 

He smiled, handing one to his daughter, who ate it as if it were just another dinosaur nugget. “Let me clean up really quick and-”

“I wouldn’t do that, kemosabe,” Taako finally said. “You’re gonna make us another batch and we’re gonna perfect it. We’re gonna make this Taaco brand because these could make millions on worlds where they don’t already exist.”

Justin laughed. “How about this: I’ll make another batch so that you guys can bring some back for the crew and I can keep some here. While they dry, do you guys want to see some of the stuff the fans of our podcast have made you?! I’ll go through it and filter out spoilers so that we don’t ruin the timeline.”

“Oh he-e-eck yeah!” Lup said through a mouthful of cookie. “And while you’re at it, you can show us some more culture? Music, dance, media.”

“Didn’t think you’d be into all of that,” Justin said, pulling up his computer and starting his search.

“We’re not just foodies, you know,” Taako said, pulling off his apron and throwing it over Cooper’s head. Justin would have given him more than a dirty glare had it not been for Cooper’s laughs of delight at the trick. “Now, are you going to show us what this world thinks of us or not?”

Before doing this, he made sure to put his children to bed so Lup and Taako could express themselves in their own way. Charlie fought, but gave into his protests after promising her a bubble bath if she took a nap. Cooper had just eaten, so she was easy to put to bed after a quick diaper change. If he was being honest, he also wanted to spend just some alone time with the twins. They seemed really nice, but they had been occupied by the baking and the kids this whole time, which had taken a lot of the fun of having a whole day set aside for them.

He spent half an hour combing through the internet for the least spoilery animatics, animations and fanarts he could find. During that time, he had a mini-debate with himself. He could show some of the works based on times that they were simply dicking around during the time in the Bureau simply because Lup wouldn’t understand what it all meant until it happened, and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, and Taako… Taako just wouldn’t remember in the first place. He wasn’t technically spoiling anything, and if he was in some shape or form, it wasn’t anything noteworthy or plot moving like what happened to Hurley and Sloane. 

In the end, he decided that he’d be safe sticking with videos containing Garfield the Deals Warlock, meme animations, or parts of episodes that were stupid little goofs.

“Oh my goodness!” Lup cried. “That was hilarious! When do we do that one?! I want to meet the weird cat… human thing so badly. Please, tell me when I’ll meet him.” 

“Well, you don’t meet Garfield for a… long time,” Justin said. 

“How long?!” Taako asked. “I wanna make as many scams with this… thing as I can.”

“How long, I can’t say, but I can say that this guy falls for scams easy if you make sure to play the right cards,” Justin said, finishing up the second batch of macarons and placing a few on a plate to bring over.

“Ugh, lame. Next!” Lup said, grabbing the remote from Taako’s hand and skipping to the next video. As soon as she did, Justin’s heart skipped a beat. It was a compilation of fanarts of the IPRE and the first one was of Taako, a small young boy in a bowtie and a tall, dark skinned man. The adults were holding the hands of the boy, swinging him back and forth without a care in the world.

“No!” The plate smashed to the floor as he lunged across the room, grabbing the controller and turning off the TV.

Taako and Lup were silent, their eyes transfixed on the now-blank screen.

“Sorry, uh, that was spoiler territory. Let’s just-”

“Who was that?” Taako managed. “He was… hot. And that kid, who was he?”

“No one. He’s- they’re no one. Just someone’s original character.” As Lup had said, his family tended to project themselves onto their characters. In Justin’s case, he unfortunately shared the inability to lie with another one of his characters from another campaign. In another universe, Duck Newton was smiling with a disgusted pride.

“You just said it was spoiler territory,” Lup said. “So which is it, a spoiler or not a spoiler?”

“Uh…” Taako wouldn’t remember this. Lup wouldn’t see him until much, much later. “Yeah, it’s a spoiler. I’m not going to tell you their names, but I can tell you, Taako… remember how when I was on the Starblaster, I said you got a hot boyfriend? Well, that’s him. You love each other so much. He gives you purpose and you… you make his heart beat again. And the kid, he admires you so much, and I know you won’t say, but you love him so much too. He’s practically- he _is_ your son. They become as much of a family to you as Lup and the others are to you.”

Taako blinked. “No, that’s… that’s not possible. I’m fucking terrible with kids. And you’ve gotta be joking; no one could ever love me like that.”

At that moment, Justin heard a door open and Charlie came waddling out, her eyes drooping with sleep and a blanket clutched in her hand.

“Hi, daddy,” she murmured sleepily and climbed up onto the couch, settling not into her father’s lap but into Taako’s, quickly falling back to sleep. Taako sat still for a moment before gently taking the blanket from Charlie’s hand and laying it over her. Lup smiled softly, using her magic to take some kind of photo of the scene. At the sight of his daughter curled up in the lap of someone he knew almost as personally as he knew himself… 

Justin wasn’t magic in the slightest, but in that moment, he felt something connect between his family and the elf. A string spanning between the cookies scattered across the ground, the recipe on the counter, the television, himself, and his daughter. It was pulled taut, but weak, ready to snap with the first bit of resistance put on it. And he knew it would, but he also knew that the remaining strands that remained would help new bonds form that would be much stronger and more powerful than any others had been before. 

Justin felt something well up in his chest around the bond and he wiped his cheeks, despite there being no tears.

“Trust me, Taako. Everyone will love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys want to help out the process, something that you guys could do is act like I'm the brothers and send me questions. Send me those Yahoos and questions looking for advice for the modren era. I won't say why, but this will help so much for future chapters.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, my tumblr is dontbugmeimantisocial. Stay at home, wash your hands. Have a good day!
> 
> Stay safe, wash your hands, have a good day!


	6. Chapter 6

“Slow down!” Travis panted, his glasses dangerously close to slipping off of his sweaty nose.

“You’re like the same age I am!” Magnus said from the edge of the trail. “Keep up then!” 

“I haven’t been training for this stuff all my life!” Travis replied, finally catching up and leaning against a nearby tree, hand on his heaving chest. “How are you not even sweaty?!” 

“I’ve learned techniques and stuff. My body may not keep my cardio skills, but I’ve learned plenty of ways to keep myself from sweating and chafing,” Magnus said, fluffing up his sideburns.   


Travis chuckled, looking around. “I thought Barry was going to try and keep up with you?” 

“Nah. About ten minutes in, he called it quits and is now,” Magnus pointed to the lake. “Relaxing by the lakeside all on his lonesome.” 

In the light of the rising August sun, the glare of the lake was almost blinding, but he could see Barry’s form sitting at the edge of the lake. They had decided to do this run at one of the lakes near Cincinnati. Despite the perfect weather, Travis had learned that it was generally very empty in the mornings, and if it wasn’t, it was mostly photographers or fishers that wouldn’t bother the alien and the podcaster if they came running down the trail. Barry didn’t complain about the location; he had been more than willing to come if it meant he got to see more of this world’s Prime Material Plane.

“Decided not to finish the run?” 

Magnus shrugged. “Yeah. He can do it, but he’d rather not.” 

“Oh I totally understand,” Travis said, stretching his arms. “Want to just walk back to the car? As a cool down before the next workout.”

“Yeah, and I get to choose this one!” Magnus said as they started walking.

“You’ve had a month to choose, so what are you going to teach me today? More sword stuff? Axe throwing?”

Magnus stroked his beard in mock thoughtfulness. “It was a hard choice. You got the basics of sword fighting down pretty quick, so I don’t think learning how to throw an axe would take very long. It wouldn’t be an adequate workout compared to what we’ve been doing for the past month.”

“So… what are we doing then? Not to be rude or anything, but you’re a fighter; a human fighter at that. Human fighters are literally what the most skilled person on this planet can be,” Travis said. 

Magnus shrugged. “You’re correct. Human fighters are pretty weak compared to magic users, and I don’t have the skills nor the time to make you competent in either of those categories.” His friend then smirked. “However, I do know someone who is competent is those skills and has access to the resources needed to teach you something no one else on the planet has.”

He pointed back on the trail, towards Barry, and suddenly, Travis realized that Barry was now standing on the lake, waving up at them casually. He rubbed his eyes and the IPRE’s science expert was gone, not even a ripple to indicate he had ever been there in the first place.

“Wait, what-”

There was a shift in the air above the lake, like heat rising off of a surface and suddenly, the Starblaster was hovering silently over the water, its bond engine glowing with energy. At the railing, Barry was leaning over the rail, looking a little exhausted after hiding the entire ship as well as creating a fake Barry for who knows how- 

“Wait.” Travis wheeled on Magnus, pointing to the Starblaster. “Are you two taking me somewhere to get trained?”

“Something like that,” Magnus said. “Come on. He’s not going to wait forever. Took me weeks to convince him and Dav to let me do this.”

The ship landed in front of them and there was a blur of light and color as Fisher came flying up to Magnus, latching around his shoulders and singing joyfully. 

“Hey, bud!” Magnus laughed, patting its bell. “You remember Travis, right?” 

Fisher turned towards Travis and poked him with a tentacle, its lights flashing the same green and red as they were when Travis had snuck onto the ship. 

“Hey there, Fisher,” Travis said sheepishly. “Good to see you again.”

Fisher turned a light blue and floated over to Travis, settling onto his shoulder gently and singing a familiar tune. After a moment, Travis recognized it as the song ‘It’s a Departure’ of the album 'Putting the Days to Bed' by John Roderick and the Longwinters. 

“How does he know that?!” Travis asked.

“We’ve been listening to your podcast, the one you do just with your brothers,” Magnus explained, leading him onto the ship. “Don’t worry, I haven’t fed him it because I don’t know how to feed him the audio, so it’s safe. However, he is enjoying it.”

“Well, Travis,” Barry said from the helm, leaning against it in a way that was obviously supposed to look cool, but didn’t suit Barry, “I heard that you had an interest in learning new things. While what Magnus has to offer is very helpful, but I’ve got something even better: magic.”

It clicked in Travis’ mind and his jaw dropped. “No way, are you going to teach me magic?! But I thought that the Plane of Magic didn’t communicate with this one!” 

“Unless,” Magnus said pointedly.

“Unless,” Barry echoed, steering the ship so it was pointed at the sky, “we go to the Plane itself.”

Magnus clapped a hand over Travis’ shoulder, startling Fisher. “Come on. Planar travel is fun and all but it’s hard to process the first time around.”

“Wait, what about the Light?” Travis asked as they got inside. “You guys were keeping it and studying it on here!” 

“Well, the government said they wanted to take a look at it, as they were giving us sanctuary. Davenport agreed, so he and Lucretia are currently with them studying it while we take this baby out,” Barry said, pulling out a small circle of purple gemstone and slipping it into the helm’s console.

“O-Okay.” Travis walked to the window and watched the lake they had just run around become the size of a quarter and was quickly indistinguishable from the surrounding forest, which then became just a spot on a continent, and that continent was then just a landmass floating on a ball of water. 

“Holy shit… it’s gorgeous,” he said, staring at his home planet in awe. There were simply no words to describe how it felt to see his home in almost all its entirety laid out before him like this. Seeing the scale of the planet made him feel both indescribably small and almost god-like. Fisher hummed happily, flashing purple and green. 

“It’s a planet, that’s for sure,” Magnus said, breaking him out of his trance. 

“Come on, I’m one of the first people who isn’t an astronaut.”   


“Well hold on to your butt, spaceman. Time for some planar travel.” Barry pressed a button on the console. In a blinding flash of purple, the ship’s speed seemed to go literally from 0 to 100 and he was thrown backwards across the deck. Fisher’s tentacles tightened around his shoulder and neck. He slammed into a wall, knocking the wind out of his lungs and Fisher off of his body, and as he fought to regain his bearings, the ship slowed with the same suddennes as before, sending him sliding back to where he was. 

“What the fuck was that, Barold?!” he heard Magnus yell from halfway across the ship. 

“Sorry! Didn’t take into account that the Plane is a lot farther from the Prime Material Plane than normal,” Barry said, helping Travis to his feet. “Magnus, take care of Fisher, he’s floating in circles a bit to your left.”

“That makes sense, I think,” Travis said, blinking hard to clear the spots dancing in his eyes. When he could finally see again, he almost lost his footing again at the sight that beheld him. They were no longer at the Prime Material Plane, that was for sure. 

The world below them was made of blues and reds and greens all mixing to form shades that Travis didn’t even know existed. Bird-like creatures soared through the air on colored wind that carried leaves the size of Barry but moved as gracefully as a swan. Rivers cut through the land like cracks in a mirror, converging to form lakes and oceans of varying sizes and colors. As they landed in a large field the color of emeralds, Travis could smell the flowers blooming nearby and would have followed their scent if it hadn’t been for Magnus holding him back with a beefy arm.

“Yeah, it’s pretty, but it’s also extremely dangerous,” he said, drawing his sword. “I’m going to be hanging around making sure nothing kills us, but Barry here will be teaching you magic. Come on Fisher!”

Fisher flew up to Travis, bumping his bell against his head before flying after Magnus, who was running across the field, sword glinting in the sunlight.

Barry walked up to him, stretching out his fingers, allowing sparks to shoot from them with every crack for good measure.

“Man, the twins would kill me if they knew I was here without them,” he said.

“Nah, they’re having a good time with Justin right now. Lup’s taken a liking to Charlie and Cooper and Taako is collecting as many things as he can on the cooking of this world.” Travis clapped his hands. “So, magic. What am I learning?!” 

“Well obviously, we’re on the Plane of Magic, so we’ll be able to gain the basics of magic pretty easily here,” Barry said. “But once you’ve got a good amount of cantrips under your belt, we’ll need to go back to the Prime Material Plane so you can train there. Like moving from machine weights to free weights.” He suddenly snapped his fingers, running into the ship and grabbing a few empty whiskey bottles.

“Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve devised a way to bottle magic so that when you’re on the Prime Material, you can use the bottle to cast as if you were on this Plane. Those are going to be for higher-level spells, since cantrips and low-level spells can be cast pretty easily on the Prime Material once you’ve used magic enough to store some up inside you. As to what you’re learning, it’s up to you. After a couple decades of magic, I know the basics of all of them and the in-depth necromancy magic.” 

Travis nodded. “I’m glad I’ll be able to bottle magic, that’ll be useful for sure. As for my class… no offense, but I don’t think necromancy is really my thing. Taako’s a transmutation wizard which would be cool to learn, but I think he’d kill me if I were to steal his brand. Lup’s got evocation, but I’m not comfortable with fire. Lucretia is… what’s she again?”

“She’s abjuration. Protective spells and whatnot,” Barry explained.

“Makes sense. Uh, Dav… he learns something that’s spoilery, but I’m fine not learning that. And Merle’s a cleric.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t suggest it,” Barry said quickly. “He’s a very interesting form of cleric. I don’t know if you know this, but in Fungston, he almost died every single day because he kept trying to take off his clothes and hug the mushrooms.”

“Oh I wouldn’t put it past him. One time, my dad as Merle had to seduce-” He clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Merle tried to seduce someone?!” Barry laughed. “I am both disgusted and horrified. Please tell me more.”   


Travis laughed. “You know what, fuck it. He’s not here right now and Magnus is elsewhere. Merle had to seduce a plant and-”

“Oh gods!” Barry was on the ground, doubled over in laughter. “Yeah, I think that’s enough of that please.”

“Yeah.” Travis smiled and then blinked as he realized something. “No, you know what, I want to be a cleric.”

“Really?” Barry asked. “How come?” 

“Well, they’re normally seen as healers and healers only, right? That’d be amazing to know how to heal just like that, especially with the Hunger coming in like six months. I want to know how to help people as much as I can if they’re hurt. Not only that, but if I can get past cantrip level on the Prime Material Plane, I know clerics have some pretty badass spells at their disposal that can be used for amazing offense and defense.” He cracked a grin. “Also because I want to spite you.”

Barry returned the grin, but it quickly faded. “Are you hundred percent sure? Because once you’re set, we’ll only have time to learn that class.”

Travis thought of Bebe, still so young and Dot, just a few months old at this point. Of Teresea, who was the stronger than him by far but still needed help on the occasion. Of his brothers and nieces and nephews and sister-in-laws and his father. All of them could protect themselves, but this was the Hunger. He had never truly faced the Hunger before, but he knew what it was capable of. 

“I’m sure.” 

* * *

And so they trained for the battles ahead. Despite what Barry had said about their time crunch and the lack of magic on his home plane, Travis became almost as skilled as Barry. Within a week, he could cast every cantrip known to clerics both on and off of the Prime Material Plane with more ease than Merle could sometimes do. By the end of the first month, he had nearly perfected Guardian of Faith on the Prime Material. For his patron, he chose Moradin, God of Family, Community and Creation. Moradin made the most sense to Travis as a person and as a DnD fan. Sure, there were no orc kingdoms to overthrow, but it seemed to fit him the best. He had to do a little diving into wikipedia as well as asking Merle for some divine favors, but eventually he confirmed that Moradin did exist and would provide Travis power should he ask for it.

When he was at home, he entertained his daughters and wife the Light cantrip, cherishing their smiles and curiosity as to his new-found abilities. Turns out Barry had really exaggerated how difficult the distance between planes would make casting magic. the He wanted to take them with him to the Plane of Magic, but after Magnus had a close encounter with a large tentacled monster from hell, he didn’t want any of his family to go there just for entertainment. So whenever he had a moment alone on the plane, he delved into his studies about his magic. Thanks to his brother’s previous knowledge about spell slots and spell usage in the game, Barry surmised that they didn’t need to spend as much time learning the logistics of spell casting and could spend more time “learning how to fuck shit up”.

One day, Travis and Magnus were having a mock battle as Fisher and Barry watched on. Magnus lunged, just barely missing him with his sword. In retaliation shot a spiritual weapon in the form of a harpoon straight at his friend. Unfortunately, Magnus wasn’t so lucky and the weapon caught him square in the shoulder, sending him flying backwards, blood pouring from his shoulder.

“Shit, Magnus!” Travis ran forward, preparing a cure wounds spell slot as he went. “I’m so sorry! Barry, get the first aid!” 

“Got it!” He heard Barry running onto the ship and assumed that he brought Fisher with him so it wouldn’t get in the way of the healing process.

Magnus groaned, holding his hand to the wound as the weapon faded away. “No, it’s good! That’s what training is for right? Seeing what we can do?”

Travis waved his wand over the wound, and despite the situation, his heart leapt at the fact that it was his own magic sealing the wound with bright purple sparks. The wound sealed itself within seconds, turning into a faint scar resting dead center of his shoulder. 

“Yeah, but I’m not supposed to kill you!” Travis replied. 

“Don’t worry about it, I’d just reset next cycle. Dying’s not too bad,” Magnus said, sitting up and wiping the blood off of his jacket. “Although the crew finding out that I got hurt is a close second.”

“I got the-” Barry stopped short when he saw Magnus sitting up. “Oh, never mind.”

Travis sighed. “I think I’m done for today. I’m low on slots and I- I’m sorry, Mag.”

Magnus laughed. “Don’t be, Trav. Seriously. Do you realize how fucking cool everything you just did is?!” 

“What do you mean?”

“Look at my shoulder! You summoned a spiritual weapon, a second level spell, after less than a month of training and then proceeded to completely heal my wound and…” He shifted his hips on the ground a bit, even going so far as to slam himself onto the grass butt-first. “Yeah! I bruised my tailbone the other day and that’s completely gone! From what you’ve been telling me, by the time the Hunger comes, you could be bringing people back to life!”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Barry said. “Magic how you’re learning it isn’t for theatrics; it’s for defense and offense.”

“I-I guess…” Travis sat down and put his head in his hands. “It’s just… now that I know what I can do, I’m not sure I want this kind of power. Bringing people back from the dead? The ability to kill someone with a single word of power? That’ll be good for the Hunger, but once the Hunger’s left, what do I do then?”

Barry was silent for a while, but then pushed his glasses up his nose and sighed. “I don’t know, Travis. I honestly don’t.” 

“I do,” Magnus said. Barry and Travis both looked at him expectantly. 

“You use it to protect your family. I can’t do magic, but I can sure as hell swing a sword better than anyone on the Starblaster. So I make sure I do that to the best of my ability when I need to. I watch their backs, give them weapons when they need them, defuse a situation before they start it. Even if that means putting myself in harms way.”

Barry nodded in agreement. “You know, sometimes I think of what I can do with my power. It’s been building up for fifty plus years and there’s so much I can do with it. But at times like these, when we’ve got the Light on a peaceful planet, I want this power out of me, gone somewhere where I can’t have it so I can just be… normal.

“But I can’t, so I use it to help my friends when they get hurt or when they need me the most. And if they don’t need help, I help the people of the world in whatever way I can and then I help out future realities by studying the Light. I do what I can with what I got, just with more than enough rather than with not enough.”

Travis thought about their words in silence. What could he do with magic on a planet that would swarm him for being able to do what he could do? No- what could he do with magic on a planet where he was the only one able to do what he could do. He could give fresh food and water to those who needed it; he could provide relief and first aid to victims of violence and natural disasters; he could find peoples car keys; he could provide people with one last farewell to their loved ones.

And he could protect his family. He could teach them defense magic after the Hunger left, teach them about the Planes even if they’d never get to see them in person. When Bebe got sad, he could show her the lights like he used to, or when Dot got her first injury, he could heal with a wave of his hand. Small cantrips to make a big impact.

Just like Barry said, do what he could with what he’s got. 

“Thanks guys.” He stood up. “And Magnus… you keep that spirit, alright? No spoilers, but that’s going to help you immensely in the future.”

Magnus grinned. “Will do, little man.”

At the jab, Travis felt some of his spirit return and grinned back. “You know, I think I’m ready to try this thing again. But I want to go against Barry; magic v. magic. See if I can get Spirit Guardian down before the day ends.”

Barry grinned, pulling out his wand. “You’re on, old man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, oh my goodness I was so excited to post this one. It took me a WEEK to figure out what class Travis was going to train to become. And knowing this man, who finished Supernatural in record time, I know he would learn how to be a cleric in less than a couple months. Also, that's kinda how it works in DnD. This was definitely one of my favorite chapters to write and I hope you guys enjoyed it. The next two chapters are going to be a little shorter simply because there was less to do with Clint and Griffin than I originally planned, but they're still good chapters I hope. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for all of your support. This has been a passion project that I didn't think would blow up as much as it did and seeing all of your comments just make my day. I'm so happy that you guys enjoy it so far and I'm so excited to show you where this goes. 
> 
> If you guys want to help out the process, something that you guys could do is act like I'm the brothers and send me questions. Send me those Yahoos and questions looking for advice for the modren era. I won't say why, but this will help so much for future chapters.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, my tumblr is dontbugmeimantisocial. Stay at home, wash your hands. Have a good day!
> 
> Stay safe, wash your hands, have a good day!


	7. Chapter 7

Clint didn’t really bother with the news about the IPRE. Too much politics brought into it and too many arguments about whether they brought anything good to the world or not. With the Hunger coming and that knowledge completely accessible to the public, both of those things were intertwining and mixing together in some ugly creature that threatened to tear the world apart. Maybe it would if somehow the Hunger miraculously didn’t arrive. On top of that, the media had finally connected the McElroy name to the presence of the crew. Thankfully, this wasn’t a true revelation and thus wasn’t the top story of the day, so the buzz only lasted a week or so before they were left to their devices again.

Today was no different. His sons were busy with the new recordings, his grandchildren were in school, and he was at work, preparing advertisements and the upcoming song list for the day. It wasn’t any different than his other days; most of the songs were boring and repetitive, the advertisements made his throat itch, and he would get the worst of the songs stuck in his head. 

As he finished the last track of the day, he heard a knock on the door and saw Janice, the woman at the front desk, standing there, looking shocked and a little confused. “There are two men here to see you, Clint.”

“Are they people I know?” Clint asked, standing up and cracking his back.

“Uh, maybe? They seem to know you and were pretty adamant about seeing you.”

“Huh.” Clint followed her out into the lobby and saw two short men standing there. One had a bushy brown beard and the other had a large blonde mustache. He was sure that he had never seen either of them before in his life, but something about them seemed familiar… 

“Ah, Mr. McElroy. Great to see you again,” the mustached one said, his voice holding a very familiar tone. “We were hoping you would come on a walk with us. Just to talk.”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” he asked.

“I would sure hope so.” Now he understood why they were so familiar. The mustached man sounded like a much older Griffin with a higher pitched voice. And this bearded man sounded like himself, but if he had smoked three packs a day for a year. Merle wouldn’t do that though; bad for the environment. And Davenport certainly wouldn’t allow it on his precious ship. 

“O-Oh! Good to see you two again, uh… if you give me a minute to clock out, I just finished up with my work.”

“Of course. We’ll be right outside.”

As the two walked outside, Janice turned to Clint. “So who were they? They sounded a bit like you, so I’m guessing long-lost relatives?”

“Something like that, yeah. Don’t worry about it too much.” Clint saw the look of confusion on her face but didn’t answer the clarify his answer, instead turning around and just about sprinting back to his office, pulling out his phone and texting his sons. 

**_Clint_ **

  * _Davenport and Merle are here to talk to me_



Almost immediately, Griffin texted back. 

**_Griffin_ **

  * _What do they want?_



**_Clint_ **

  * _To talk I guess. Didn’t really say about. They were also in disguise._



**_Travis_ **

  * _That makes sense. Well are you going to talk to them?_



**_Clint_ **

  * _I already said yes and besides, I’m done with work._



**_Griffin_ **

  * _Tell Dav I said hi!_



**_Justin_ **

  * _Don’t do anything stupid. Remember the timelines._



**_Clint_ **

  * _Come on, don’t you trust your dear ol dad?_



**_Justin_ **

  * _No_



**_Travis_ **

  * _No_



**_Griffin_ **

  * _Depends on the day_



Clint sighed, putting away his phone. His sons were going to be the death of him. 

“Hey,” Janice said as he prepared to leave. “Just be a bit cautious. These guys seem a little sketchy.”

“Oh they are, but they’re fine. I trust them wholeheartedly.” It wasn’t a complete lie.

As they promised, Davenport and Merle were waiting outside, still in their disguises, admiring the scenery.

“Nice town you’ve got here, Clint,” Davenport said.

“Thank you. Justin and I live here for a reason.” Clint adjusted his hat to block out the hot September sun. “You said you wanted to talk, right? Are we going to talk here, on a walk, or on…” He pointed towards the sky.

“We’ll just talk and walk. Come on, we’re a bunch of old men, we need the exercise.” With almost comedic timing, when Merle took a few steps forward, Clint heard a few pops and saw the dwarf’s knee buckle slightly. “It’s fine. Let’s just go.”

“So, again… why did you guys come all the way down here to talk to me?” Clint asked.

“Well, we just wanted to talk, believe it or not,” Davenport said. “Have discussions, as Merle said, as a bunch of old men.”

“What do old men on your world talk about, anyways?” Merle asked. “The only one I’ve really gotten to hang out with is this fellow right here.”

“I’m not quite sure. Most of the people I hang out with are a bit younger than I am.” Clint thought about it for a moment, running ideas through his head. “Would you want to head to my place so I can make some dinner, set up a card game or something, and figure out what to talk about then? Carol is out of town, so we won't be too bothered.”

“Solid plan; you’d make a better chief of security than Maggie.” 

They walked in silence for a while, giving time for Clint to think. What could they talk about? These two were century-old, magical reality-travelers and he was a radio DJ who lived in the same town as his oldest son. What in this world did they have in common-

Oh. The thought hit Clint like a ton of bricks. That’s what they had in common, or at least he and Merle did. 

They got the house and as soon as the door was closed behind them, Davenport waved a hand and dropped the spell around them, making them look like their normal selves. Clint noticed that they were wearing clothing that he would imagine being relaxed casual outfits during the medieval times or fantasy times.

“Do you want something to drink? Water, alcohol, juice?” 

“Whiskey, if you have it.”

“Just water.” Davenport sat at the table, his feet hanging a few inches off of the ground. Merle joined him, pulling out a deck of cards and starting to shuffle them. “Round of rummy, Clint?”

“They had rummy on your homeworld?” Clint asked, setting out the drinks and taking the hang Davenport dealt him.

“It was one of the most popular games there,” Davenport said, shuffling and preparing the deck. “Now, I’ve got to warn you, in my youth I was a mere round from getting the nationals.”

“What happened?”

“Same thing that happened to Lup and her fifteen dollars.” Davenport put down the first card. “Greg fucking Grimaldis.”

* * *

A few rounds went by and sure enough, Davenport won every single time. Something about the way that he played was both completely unpredictable and more coordinated than anything Clint had ever seen before. It was like fighting a well-choreographed dance troupe that was able to adapt to whatever music you played without missing a beat. He tried at the beginning of each round to convince Clint and Merle to put in some bets, but it was obvious if they did agree, it’d cost them more than a round. 

“Good game, gentlemen,” Davenport said, collecting up the cards and reshuffling them. “Care for another round?”

“I’m good,” Clint said, finishing up his drink. 

“No thank you, Cap,” Merle said, taking the bottle off the counter and pouring himself another glass. “Oh yeah, we did say we wanted to talk and we really haven’t, have we?” 

“No, not really,” Clint said, taking the cards from the dwarf and putting them away. “What do you want to talk about.”

The two thought about it for a second.

“I got nothing. Capn’?” 

Davenport stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Yeah, I got one, and it’s a bit deep, mind you, but… we haven’t lived normal lives in years. Every day we wake up knowing that if one of us makes it out of the cycle, we could die in an instant and be back a year later. I’m going to take a gander and say that this year has not been normal for you, but it seems that you’ve pulled your life together quite well since then. I’m just curious as to how you did that? How did you so quickly go from ‘the characters we created are on our world’ to playing rummy with them over a glass of whiskey?” 

Clint leaned back, running the question through his head a little bit. 

“I guess, hm… I guess I really haven’t thought about it. Now that I do though, I’m pretty sure that I _haven’t_ gone back to a normal life.”

“What are you talking about? You got back to normal super quickly and super easily!” Merle waved his hands at the house. “You’re at work! You’re recording with your kids again. That’s pretty normal if you ask me.”

Clint chukled. “There’s two things wrong with that statement. No offense, Merle, but Like Davenport said, you have no idea what normal is.”

“Fair.”

“And secondly, it hasn’t been quick or easy. It’s been nearly three months since we snuck onto the ship and I still get anxious when I realize how badly I fucked up that day. Even though the knowledge that my family is involved in this crap is old news, I still have reporters hounding me any chance they get. I had to mute my phone so I could concentrate on work, so I missed important information from my family and friends. I’ve had to adjust to knowing that the apocalypse is coming, and yeah it won’t last forever and we won’t be sucked into the Hunger, but it’ll still ravage this reality before moving on, and that means every day I have to wake up to that knowledge.” 

He took a deep breath, realizing that his voice had been rising in volume and anger. Davenport and Merle were silent, looking somewhere between awed and at a loss for words. He didn’t blame them; he was going on a bit of a tangent about how horrible this all was, which much have been uncomfortably familiar. After a second to compose himself, he continued. “That’s not normal for me. Hell, even when we’re voluntarily put into the spotlight it’s not this insane. At the moment, my level of normal is sitting in the DJ booth doing my work.

“But you know what, I’m alright with it. No joke; I’m perfectly content with waking up every morning knowing I’m a day closer to the apocalypse. You know why? Because I’m living in that moment! I get to enjoy every day a little more now that I know what’s coming. I get to savor each moment I spend with my friends and with my family. I’m savoring the moments I’m having with you guys! That’s how I got back to the place I am today, just by living in the moment again and appreciating what I’ve got while I’ve got it.” 

“So… when this is over, that’s how I get back to normal? Appreciate what I get?” Davenport asked, sounding intrigued but suspicious.

“Yeah, basically.”

“I can get behind that,” Merle said. “Easy to appreciate what more you can be given considering what you’ve got: a pair of undies, a nice pair of shoes, and a couple rags.”

“Are those rags for cleaning or for wear? Because I don’t see a difference between your normal clothes and rags,” Clint said with a sly grin. “Unless you want to step up the existentialism from Davenport’s question.”

Merle scoffed. “Well how about this, smartass. What’s it like being a dad?”

“Oh that’s an easy question to answer. Well, not easy, but I basically have this answer rehearsed line for line with how many times I’ve been asked it.” He cleared his throat, standing up and began to speak in his most dramatic acting voice. “It’s great, you know? When they were younger, I got to help shape my sons lives and help them become the men that they are today. Seeing them grow up has been the greatest pleasure I could ever ask for.”

Davenport was hiding a chuckle behind his hand as Merle almost visibly fumed. “Fine, wise guy, you win this round. Not like I can compare your experience or performance to anyone else's.”

Before Clint could stop himself, he muttered, “Yet.” 

The two looked at him, their faces registering what he had said. “Did you just say- is someone on the Starblaster going to have kids someday?” 

“Well… I mean statistically speaking, yeah.” Clint frantically searched for a way to explain himself without spoiling anything. “You got Barry and Lup over there. Magnus is a lady killer and- yeah someone’s having kids. I’m not telling who though.”

Davenport blinked and then rummaged through his pockets, pulling out an old worn notebook and setting it on the table. Clint saw that the pages were marred with names and amounts as well as what the person was betting on. At the bottom of one of the pages, he saw that they had bet who would be the first to die in each cycle, with the winner of that particular cycle being Barry, racking up at least a good amount of trinkets and collected riches from Taako’s death. 

“100 gold on it being Barry and Lup once this is all done. And if we want to go even further, they’ll have… a single boy.” 

“Oh-ho we’re betting, are we?!” Merle laughed. “Fine. Here’s one that’ll blow your mind: 200 on it being me first! Two, a boy and girl.” 

Clint had to choke back a laugh as Davenport wrote these bets down. This would be one round that Davenport would finally lose, and if he was remembering his currencies correct, he would lose big time. 

“So, how does the winnings go?” Clint asked. “You just bet whatever assets you guys have lying about and at the end of the bet, you just hand it over?” 

Davenport nodded, stuffing the notebook away. “Essentially, yes. You already know that physical items don’t leave us at the end of each cycle, so we have a whole supply closet dedicated to storage. It’s pretty organized, all things considered.” 

“It’s because the twins hate getting their stuff mixed up.” Merle laughed. “Young people and their obsession with having their own stuff.” 

Clint let out a bark of laughter. “You think you have it bad with those two?! I gotta tell you all the stories I’ve got on the boys growing up. Three rowdy boys in one household in this town with a mere tolerance for each other at the time. I’ve got more stories about that than you’ll ever have of your entire journey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had a bit of trouble with this chapter, but this is the best I got. I love the idea of the two oldest 'wisest' members of the crew going to the oldest, 'wisest' person they know for advice on how to live life once it's all over. The next one is a bit similar in premise and in length (sorry about that, it was hard to expand on the idea more than I did). 
> 
> Thank you all so much for the support. It's crazy to go looking through all the comments and seeing just how much everyone likes this little project of mine. I got all the questions I need so look for those in an upcoming chapter!
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, my tumblr is dontbugmeimantisocial. 
> 
> Stay at home, wash your hands. Have a good day!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, but when I was doing some quick character studies to write this chapter, I noticed that Lucretia and Griffin are completely different people. Griffin is fun and loves his family more than life itself. Lucretia is the same in that sense, but also in a completely different way. We've seen what she's done to protect her family and that isn't something that Griffin would ever do. And in my mind, despite her actions potentially taking place 30 years after this story, she and Griffin are just too different to get along properly. And that's so cool.
> 
> So I'm expecting this story to be two more chapters long. I know it's a bit of a quick ending, but it's a natural end to the story. Only a few months left in this world until the Hunger, so there's not much they can do with the group scattered across the worlds and planes. Next chapter I'm really excited for; I'll be posting that same time next Wednesday.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your support. 100 kudos... god damn that's a lot of people. Thanks for everything guys. Comments are always appreciated, my tumblr is dontbugmeimantisocial.
> 
> Stay at home, wash your hands. Have a good day!

It was two months to the apocalypse. Two months until the Hunger appeared in the sky and did immeasurable damage until it realized what it was looking for was no longer there and moved on.

Griffin watched Henry run around the backyard with Rachel. He was having the time of his life chasing around a small robotic car they had gotten him the other day. When his son grew up, he would remember these months. Would he remember the crew coming to their house every few weeks to visit and catch up, telling them stories that Griffin had written. And if he did,  _ how  _ would he remember these months? Would he remember them as the time that mommy and daddy spoiled him beyond belief or would he only remember the days of darkness and fear?

There was a sharp knock at the door and in his surprise, he nearly knocked a glass of water all over his computer. 

“Just a second!” He wiped up the mess, getting his clothes soaked in the process, but ran to the door before the person waiting had to wait any longer. He opened the door and almost slammed it shut in another reflex of surprise.

“Oh, Lucretia! Good to see you.” 

“Good to see you too, Griffin.” She gave him a warm, strained smile. Griffin had heard from the press that she had been seen at the largest libraries in the country, including the Library of Congress, and he could see that her fingers were slightly bandaged from the amount of paper cuts she had probably been getting from flipping through countless books a day. 

“Come on in. So, what’s going on?” She walked in, sitting down at the table and pulling out a blue, leather-bound book.

The way that she looked at him made him feel like he had asked the stupidest question yet. “Well, you’re a renowned storyteller. The podcast, the books. I haven’t read them for obvious reasons, but I have heard and seen how much they’ve inspired other people. I want to hear them straight from you, Griffin.” 

“Which stories? Because you know that I can’t tell you your story-”

“Oh no, of course not. But I know you have other stories other than mine, and I want to hear about them.” She opened her journal and prepared a pen, staring at him intensely. 

Griffin sat across from her. “Lucretia, I’m flattered, I really am, but at the same time… why would you want to hear my stories?”

“I’m the chronicler of this journey. It’s my job to learn about each world and each plane that we come across. I’ve already learned as much as I care to learn about this world, but this is the first world that I’ve ever been to, and more than likely the only one, where I will meet people in a situation like you and your family.” The entire time, she was writing his words as well as her own in tiny, meticulous handwriting across the page, all the while maintaining eye contact with him. 

“Not only are you each individually unique, but you also quite literally hold the stories of people as unique as my crew and I. There will be people in this world to tell your story once you’re gone, but this is so unique that it has to be shared elsewhere. It goes against who I am to let this type of story stay in one place. I’m not asking for my story; to be quite frank, I don’t want to know it. But I am asking for other stories, if you wouldn’t mind.”

He nodded. “Alright, I’ll tell you all the stories I can think of, both of what happened to me and what happens in my written stories. But I also want to know about you, if  _ you  _ wouldn’t mind.”

She smiled. “That’s a fair deal.”

So he told her everything he could think of. He started with the story of Amnesty, as that was a story he had written and one he could share about him and his family. After a few of their antics during liveshows and the other arcs, as well as a couple of their best bits from MbMbaM and Paul Blart, he focused solely on his personal life.  Some of it was strange for both of them (he had never described the times he had put his Amiibo characters into his mouth for the entertainment of others) and Lucretia didn’t write as much during those stories. But at others, she filled entire pages with small descriptions of events. When he began to describe his life with Rachel, she took a moment to pull out a new smaller notebook and by time he reached their marriage, the book was filled. While she wasn’t doing it now, he could easily imagine her writing in two separate books about two separate events simultaneously. 

“That sounds wonderful, Griffin.” Her voice sounded strained and it was tinted with the fake enthusiasm that he had been forced to give her during his brother’s antics. “But, I do have a very important question that’s not related to your family.”

“Yeah, shoot.”

She opened her mouth but was interrupted by the opening of the backdoor as Rachel walked in, Henry in her arms and clutching a small toy truck.

“Oh, hi, Lucretia!” Rachel said. “I’ve heard quite a lot about you, a lot that I’m not supposed to know. Or at least that’s how Griffin described it to me.

“Hello, Rachel. It’s nice to finally meet you.” Lucretia stood and shook Rachel’s hand. “I’ve also heard so much about you from Griffin.”

“Have you now?” She gave him a glare that obviously said ‘What is going on?’ and ‘We’re going to talk about this later’. He mouthed ‘sorry’ back. “Well, I hope he’s left out the time that I was arrested.”

Lucretia smiled at the joke and Griffin noticed that this entire time, she was waving her index finger in midair. After a moment, he realized that she was actually writing, probably memorizing the words along the way. 

“I can see why so many people were enraptured by his stories if he describes his life like this.” Her eyes fell on Henry, who was looking at her shyly and Griffin noticed how much her eyes lit up at the sight of him. “This must be Henry!” Lucretia’s voice went up a few octaves as she leaned a bit closer to Henry, smiling at him gently. “Hi, Henry! I’m Lucretia.” 

“Hi Miss. Lucretia!” he squeaked, waving his truck at her.

“I have to go put him down for a nap and then put myself down for one.” Rachel smiled at her. “It was great to meet you, Lucretia.”

“Bye, Miss. Lucretia!” Henry cried as they left the room.

“You’re lucky, Griffin. Your family is incredible.”

“They’re great,” he replied. “I mean, my brothers could use some work, but other than that they’re all fantastic.”

She chuckled and then looked back down at her notebooks. “Griffin… when you were on the Starblaster with your family the first day we met, you said something that caught my attention. You said that if you were to tell us about the Hunger and about our future, it could ruin our chances of a happy ending and the chance to save the planes the Hunger has absorbed.”

Griffin felt his stomach drop as she said this, realizing that he had underestimated her skills and knowledge. She was like fans, able to read into the subtext either too much or just enough to learn the truth.  “Yeah, I did. But Lucretia-”

“I want a yes or no answer, Griffin.” Her voice sounded commanding but her eyes were filled with a cry for help. “Is there a way I can help all of the planes we failed to save? Is there a way I can save my family?”

He rubbed his eyes, trying to find a way to answer this question without actually answering it. How could he? His main priority when it came to contact with the crew was not to spoil anything; hell, he even reached out to social media to ask fans to tone down the spoilers if they wanted the timeline to stay intact. She seemed so insistent on getting an answer to this question, even if she knew the possible consequences. 

“Lucretia, you know I can’t answer that… I want to so badly. For you, I would answer it, but for the fate of all of those countless worlds out there? Lucretia… for the longest time I thought it was a story. I thought that the Hunger was something I came up with in my mind. If I look at this situation as if I created your crew, the Light of Creation, and the Hunger, that means that everything the Hunger did, it’s because I created it to do exactly that. If I give you a straight answer, it could destroy everything.”

She sighed, closing her notebook. “Fine. I appreciate your time, Griffin, but I should be getting back to my crew.” 

He pursed his lips, feeling more and more guilty the closer he got to the door. He wanted to help, but he didn’t know how to without risking everything. 

“Wait…” She stopped just before her hand touched the doorknob. “I can tell you something. Something small, but I promise you that it’ll be worth your time.” She turned back to him, her eyes gleaming with curiosity. 

He thought through his knowledge of her story, grabbing bits and pieces that he knew would be valuable answers to her question. “No one can do this type of thing alone, Lucretia. I couldn’t make these stories without my family, they wouldn’t have one without me- not to brag. Trust those around you.”

She blinked. “I do. I have no choice but to trust them if I want to keep this mission alive.”

“I don’t doubt that, but you need to remember that, alright?” Griffin smiled sadly. “Coming from me, you did more for the crew the year of the Judges than any of them did the other cycles. You’re capable of doing life-threatening tasks alone, but don’t rely on that skill.”

She nodded, opening the door. “Thank you, Griffin. I’ll remember that.”

She was lying, but he couldn’t say anything but, “Take care, Lucretia. I’ll see you soon.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Intro (Bob Ball):** The McElroy brothers are not experts, and their advice should never be followed. Travis insists he’s a sexpert, but if there’s a degree on his wall, I haven’t seen it. Also, this show isn’t for kids, which I mention only so the babies out there will know how cool they are for listening. What’s up, you cool baby?

**[theme music plays]**

**Justin** : Hello everybody and welcome to  _ My Brother, My Brother, and Me,  _ an advice show for the modren era. I’m your oldest brother Justin McElroy.

**Travis** : I’m your middlest brother, Travis McElroy.

**Griffin:** What’s up fuckers, I’m your sweet baby brother Griffin ‘Bootilicious’ McElroy!

**Taako:** What the fuck was that?

**Justin:** It was our intro. You guys said that you’d listened to our podcast before! 

**Magnus:** We said we’d listened to it! That doesn’t mean that we took in what the sounds were!

**Travis:** Well I, for one, am offended and insulted that we even let you three on here.

**Griffin:** Hey, Justin. Justin. I’m confused who are these three weirdos hijacking our show? Cause it’s like our show and these guys just popped into my house, trying to shove the mics up their asses and are somehow talking through those asses.

**Justin:** Well that’s a very good question, little bro. Today, folks, is a very special episode of  _ My Brother, My Brother, and Me.  _ In case you’ve somehow been living under a rock, today our special guestsperts are our very own alien friends, Magnus, Merle, and Taako!

**[half-hearted cheering from everyone on-call]**

**Justin:** That’s right, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between. Today we’re recording with these guys to get their advice on some modren world stuff. It’s going to be a bit of a short episode since, well, they’re our friends, but they’re not necessarily cheap for aliens.

**Taako:** Like HELL I would let us appear for anything cheaper than what we offered. But I was jealous for you three because, well, you’re okay I guess.

**Merle:** Also, the apocalypse coming next month.

**Griffin:** Nope! Not that because this show isn’t a scary time. This show is about those fun times. Now, we’re not going to skim over the topic. Later today we’re going to be releasing a special bonus episode that’ll be available to everyone that’s completely about what’s happening next month.

**Travis:** Yes, and we recommend that you watch it, share it, get the word out there. A lot of our celebrity friends will be sharing the episode. 

**Justin:** Yeah, and these three plus the crew will be featured in a couple TV segments later this week about that! How many is that again?

**Taako:** Well if I’m recalling correctly, we’re going to have about three episodes per TV station on about ten different stations. I’ve had to get a new outfit for every single appearance, do you realize how hard it is?!

**Travis:** You guys got more TV time than us and we made you guys! How the fuck is that fair?!   
  


**Magnus:** We are aliens. You three are a bunch of middle-aged guys whose dad sounds and looks like Merle. 

**Merle:** Oh that’s me!

**Magnus:** He literally said your name. He’s not talking about some other Merle that was created by a McElroy. The odds of that happening more than this once are literally impossible. If Barry were here, he’d prove that statement with some science shit. 

**Merle:** Well how was I supposed to know?! I’ve gotten pretty popular this past year, so I thought that maybe some people had named their little baby after me!

**Travis:** Merle, you are the only Merle I’ve ever met and you’re an alien. No one names their kid Merle. It’s an old name made up by an old man with old eyes who saw it on Fantasy Name Generator and thought ‘Hey that’s a cool name’. Love you, daddy.

**Justin and Griffin:** Love you, daddy.

**Griffin:** The only person I could think of named Merle was Merle Haggard.

**Merle, Magnus, Taako:** Who?

**Griffin:** Exactly. How ‘bout a Yahoo?

**Merle:** What’s a Yahoo?

**Griffin:** This is a Yahoo sent in by Tim, thank you Tim. It’s by anonymous Yahoo answer user who I’m going to call Koopie. Koopie asks, “How do I convince my brother to stop yelling ‘Yeetus to the fetus’ in public?”

**Justin:** [laughing] Griffin can you repeat that?

**Griffin:** How. Do I. Convince my brother. To stop yelling. YEETUS TO THE FEETUS. In public. [cough] Sent by anonymous Yahoo answer Koopie.

**Travis and Justin:** [laughing]

**Taako:** Well as someone who has a sibling who does stupid shit like that, I’m going to say up front and say that you can’t. Don’t even try to stop them because to stop him, you can either kill him or join him. There is no inbetween. 

**Magnus:** So is yeet a kind of slang from this world?

**Griffin:** Oh shit guys, I forgot! Magnus is a meme virgin!

**Travis:** Magnus, I’m ashamed of you. 

**Magnus:** I don’t care about these memes! Tell me what yeet means and I’ll give advice that’s better than Taako’s!

**Justin:** To yeet something, my dear virgin, is to throw something with force and meaning. You yeet something when you want to get rid of it for good.

**Merle:** Oh, so to yeet a fetus is to throw away a fetus.

**Travis:** Exactly! So boys how do we get Koopie’s brother to stop yelling ‘Yeetus to the Feetus’?

**Justin** : I do have to say, I agree with Taako. Siblings are not easy to convince, especially when it comes to this type of stuff. B-Because this is important. This boy is exercising his first amendment rights, so does that give Koopie the right to 

**Taako:** Yeah. So here’s what I’d suggest if you are able to convince him not to do this: tell him that his own fetus will get yeetus if he doesn’t stop.

**Griffin:** Mm, but here’s the thing, ‘Ko. You have a sister. I’m the youngest of these brothers so I know that ain't gonna fly. What you gotta do is you gotta tell him that you’re not gonna stand for this when Karen comes around the corner bag a flying.

**Merle:** But what he’s not a younger brother? What if he’s like Justin and is wise beyond his years like me?

**Magnus:** That’s pretty generous there on both accounts, Merle, but you bring up a fair point. What does Koopie do if this is their older brother?

**Justin:** Well in that case he holds all the power and you got yourself a power struggle. 

**Travis:** Ooh, bad luck. I’ve been in a couple power struggles of my own and they’re hard to take back if you’re the younger.

**Griffin:** You can’t fucking complain about a power struggle, Trav. I’m the baby and you two always gang up on me in Animal Crossing!

**Taako:** Ooh, spill the goss! I wanna hear all about your guys’ lives.

**Griffin:** No! They know what they fucking did!

**Justin:** You’re the one who trusted us with your island, Griff!

**Merle:** I have a suggestion!

**Travis:** Shoot, Merle, so I can avoid the consequences to my actions.

**Merle:** I once had to deal with an animal who wanted the cats in the nearby yard to stop bullying it. So what I did is I went to the cats and I kindly said, “I will give you rodents upon rodents if you stop bullying the cat”.

**Taako:** Did it work?

**Merle:** Fuck no! Cats are wily bastards and I ended up having to go the hospital because I didn’t know I was allergic to cat scratches.

**Travis, Griffin, Taako, Justin, Magnus:** [laughing]

**Merle:** It wasn’t funny! I was swollen and bleeding and shit!

**Griffin:** [coughing] This reminds me of the time I had to negotiate movie night with my lovely wife, Rachel. She wanted to watch something with Henry, so it had to be PG but I was in the mood for something nice and filled with the word fuck. We reached the agreement to watch the classic movie  _ Tooth Fairy  _ starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

**Magnus:** Oh I met him! He’s super chill.

**Travis:** What the fuck?! You met Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson before us?! 

**Taako:** Well in all fairness, you three fanboy about him over these microphones and we came from space talking about a literal Light of Creation and the apocalypse. He wanted to meet us and I, of course, said yes. Who would say no to him?! 

**Justin:** Fuck out of here with that bullshit. 

**Griffin:** Did you tell him that his movie literally let our dad pass a kidney stone? Or that he should come on our show and tell us how to work out better?

**Merle:** His movie did what? Hang on guys, I gotta go see this movie now.

**Magnus:** Ew, gross! 

**Taako:** TMI, little man. No, we did tell him that you guys were friends of a friend of his. Lick a Man Wall or something like that. He said he would look you guys up but didn’t seem to impressed other than that. 

**Griffin:** Aw, boo. Even us being BFF’s with Lin-Manuel Miranda didn’t convince him to come on our show?

**Taako:** What about this. What if we could get Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to say ‘Yeetus to the Fetus’ on like that twitter thing and make it a challenge? The person who can say ‘Yeetus to the Fetus’ most like him wins. Obviously, I would win.   
  


**Magnus:** But I thought Koopie wanted their brother to stop saying it? Isn’t it kind defeating the purpose of them asking us for advice if we’re going to endorse the saying of the phrase?

**Travis:** I’m gonna go and be devil’s advocate for a second here and say that I’m an older brother. So if Koopie is a younger sibling and this is bothering them, what you gotta do is have an triple-threat - that’s actor, singer, wrestler- endorse the saying phrase. Then you can flash mob an entire area with ‘Yeetus to the Fetus’.

**Griffin:** Now we’re circling back to the ‘join us or die’ idea. Only this time, we get Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to say ‘Yeetus to the Fetus’ so Koopie’s younger brother can continue to do what he does without persecution.

**Travis:** That’s the plan! 

**Justin:** I’ve got another question. This was also sent in by Tim, thank you Tim. This person asks, ‘What’s the line between toy and puppet in the Toy Story movies? I haven’t seen Toy Story 4, but I know there are ventriloquist dummies in that one. If all puppets are alive, what does this mean for the puppets used in TV Shows and major movies/media franchise? I have to know. And that’s from Puppetually Curious in Covington.

**Griffin:** Let’s just get this out of the way. And I’m not kink shaming here. HOWEVER. If the puppets are alive in this universe, specifically the ventriloquist puppets, those are some kinky mother fuckers. 

**[Travis, Magnus, and Justin laughing]**

**Griffin:** They go around and willingly let people put their arms up in their buttocks and control them. I’m pretty fucking sure that’s a kink!

**Taako:** Gross you sound like Merle.

**Merle:** How does he sound like me?! I would never say anything like that.

**Taako:** You know what you fucking did and  _ do _ , old man!

**Merle:** No, I don’t! I’d like it explained!

**Travis:** Okay, okay. So yeah, the puppets are kinky and the toys, would they be, like, into that stuff too?

**Justin:** I don’t think so. Cause in ‘Toy Story 3’, they actively go out of their way to get out of the horrible playing conditions at that preschool. They do a shawshank-level prison escape out of a preschool!

**Magnus:** But if a ventriloquist dummy was being treated really badly, wouldn’t they want to leave too?

**Griffin:** Ah, now that’s a good point! Are the toys able to consent? 

**Taako:** I don’t know about y’all, but this is taking a bit of a turn that’s making me a bit uncomfortable. And if I’m uncomfortable, there’s definitely some people out there who are too.

**Justin:** Good point, good point. Moving on. So like I don’t think there’s a difference between a toy and a puppet. Like seriously, you could use a toy as a puppet right?

**Merle:** When I was a kid, we put on a puppet show using rocks and shells from the beach. I kept them afterwards because they reminded me of it, but they never came to life. But they were still puppets, so those could count as toys, right?

**Travis:** It’s all about the label of a toy. If it’s labelled as something that can be played with, it’s alive and it’s a toy. If I were to play with a chair, that could come to life.

**Griffin:** But all the toys we’ve seen are human in some shape or form. Every single toy has something about them that’s humanoid so it can move and stuff. So if it doesn’t have something to help it get around, does it count as a toy or does it count as an object?

**Justin:** Nah, I think things that aren’t our typical toys like dolls and figurines aren’t toys. Charlie and Cooper were watching Toy Story 3 the other day and there were some xylophones and stuff in the background that weren’t alive.That does raise the question about the etch-a-sketch and that mini karaoke machine in the first two movies though. 

**Travis:** Yeah, and Bo Peep! She’s a figurine from a lamp but she’s alive. 

**Griffin:** Cause Andy played with her you dingus. And Justin already said that figurines are a part of the ‘living being’ category.

**Taako:** What if in food fights the food becomes sentient because it’s being used as a toy of some kind. It’s being used for entertainment purposes. So the question then becomes is a toy something that helps with the entertainment process? Like that chair Travis was talking about earlier, because it was being used for fun, could that make it a living thing.

**Magnus:** Hm… Everything is alive! It makes sense why my socks go missing all the time! They’re running away because I treat them badly! I just put them on my feet and I use them because they make me happy to be running in comfortable things!

**Merle:** Nah, I think your socks just go missing because they stink up anything they come near so Lup throws them overboard at any chance she gets. I don’t blame her, they smell as bad as some sort of dead fish or some sort of dead… anything.

**Magnus:** Oh wow thanks.

**[Griffin, Taako, Travis laughing]**

**Justin:** [sigh] Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We really appreciate all the support everyone has been giving us these past ten years. With what’s coming, we hope you’re preparing well, staying healthy, staying safe. We’ll continue uploading until the last day, so keep an eye for all that. 

**Travis:** Seriously, please stay safe. We’re going to be releasing an episode on apocalypse safety with these three tomorrow afternoon alongside a video tutorial on some simple fighting techniques we’ve been learning. We highly recommend you listen to it. Because of this, we’re going to be suspending shipping starting next week, so if you want anything, depending on where you are, now is the time to order what you want. 

**Griffin:** Thank you to John Roderick-

**Griffin, Travis, Justin, Taako, Magnus, Merle:** John Roderick and the Long Winters for the use of our theme song (It’s a) Departure, off the album Putting the Days to Bed. You know, not many people know this, but the end music and the Moneyzone music we put in are both from that song.

**Taako:** I’m surprised too, they’re very similar in a good way. I like that song.

**Griffin:** Well there we go! Uh, how about a final Yahoo?   
  


**Magnus:** Make it a good one! We’re only here for a short time but we want a good time!

**Griffin:** [chuckling] Alright… This was sent in by Graham Robuck. Thanks, so much Graham. This is by Yahoo user Hollis and Hollis asks… “Help, I can’t bait my cats to love me by covering my hands in chicken grease. What do I do?” 

**[laughing]**

**Justin:** [sighing] My name is Justin McElroy.

**Taako:** I want to try baiting someone with chicken grease on my hands. 

**Travis:** [coughing] My name is Travis McElroy.

**Magnus:** What do you even bait a cat to do?!

**Griffin:** And I’m Griffin McElroy. 

**Merle:** Who would even want to bait a cat?

**Justin:** This has been My Brother, My Brother and Me. Kiss your dad square on the lips. 

**[theme music plays]**

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fun experience! I tried to copy the style of the transcripts provided generously by Maximum Fun. Sorry about such a short chapter, I had no clue how to balance out six different people just rambling about different things until they moved on. I get how the brothers go on for twenty minute bits with each other, but even as a person who can ramble for hours and hours, writing the dialogue of them plus the THB by myself was a challenge I frankly wouldn't recommend unless you truly want. Big thanks to Feelysonheelys, Guesswhatilovethisfic and my good friend Hollis for providing me with the questions they answered! That was quite interesting.
> 
> It makes me sad to say this, but next chapter will be the final chapter of this story. I'm going to be posting it a week later than I normally do to give myself enough time get it as perfect as I can. I also have AP tests next week, so I don't have as much time as I want to be writing it. But next chapter is it, the Hunger. Let's see what happens, shall we?
> 
> Comments, kudos, bookmarks, yadda yadda... are always appreciated, my tumblr is dontbugmeimantisocial.
> 
> Stay at home, wash your hands. Have a good day!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well... that's it. Holy shit I can't believe it. I got this story idea a while ago and figured 'fuck it' and just wrote it and posted it. 
> 
> Honestly I don't know what else to say. Thank you all for reading. Thanks for the support. See you next time I post something. I'm thinking another TAZ or something Sanders Sides who knows. 
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @dontbugmeimantisocial
> 
> Stay safe, wash your hands. Have a good day!

The unmoving storm was here and it was more menacing than anyone thought it would be. The clouds had begun to gather the other day across the world, the tell tale sign of what was to come. The world began to gray soon after, the grass losing their color and any other structure that held a hint of color being drained in only hours. The people looked at each other, only faint tints of their natural pigments remaining.

It had been agreed early on that any excess military forces would be sent to help others. Despite the size of the American military, the government had spread their armies so thin to protect as many people as possible that it would be impossible to send troops elsewhere. Countries that were powerful enough had their most dangerous weapons aimed at the sky, ready to fire at the push of a button. If today was the day that they died, they would go down fighting. 

Those who had heeded the warnings began to stockpile what they could into their homes or abandon their livelihoods for the safety of government-provided and protected shelters. There were those who were stubborn in their ways who ignored the warnings and signs, continuing about their day as normal or appearing at every street corner across the globe with protest signs for whatever they could think of. Some were protesting the government, love, the people, the crew, but although they claimed it was a hoax set up by some known force infiltrating the world’s minds, they carried fear in their hearts. 

The McElroy family had decided early on that they would be together for the attack. They had never abandoned each other in times of need before and they weren’t going to start now. The family could be found in Austin, Texas, huddled together in the lower floor of an old Amazon warehouse completely surrounded by official and unofficial armed forces. All of their pets were being kept in an underground floor that had been reserved for children, mothers, and the elderly. The state had allowed any and all who were certified to shoot to put their lives on the line for those who couldn’t protect themselves.

Griffin sat with his oldest brother Justin, fiddling with the guns that had been provided to them when they entered. They were not comfortable with having them, or the idea that they’d have to use them, but they wanted to do whatever they could to protect their families if the need came up. Yes, they were worried that would happen, but at the same time, they were confident that the world would be there to protect them. The Hunger wasn’t there quite yet, but when it arrived, it wouldn’t be taking this world. Not today, not ever.

Clint was with Carol, huddled in a corner looking at photos of simpler times. Family vacations, livestreams on Youtube, accidental trips to Nevada or the hospital. They were ready for this day, but at the same time they weren’t. How could you prepare for a day like today, the literal end of the world? The only comfort they had was that their family was there with them. They had been offered places in the more secure location, but they were also given the choice to refuse this offer, which they took despite all pushback just to stay with their families. But due to their ages, all of their grandchildren and daughter-in-laws had been required by law to go to the location, something that had been a source of fear for weeks but also for relief. If they were safer there… 

Travis had been quick to volunteer once this had been announced. While the officials initially questioned his lack of weaponry, they let him enter once they saw what he could do that no one else could. But even with the hope that all this protection would keep them safe, his entire body was trembling in fear. Because of Dot’s age, Teresa had been forced to leave her family to take her two children into the lower, more secure bunker without her husband. As if that wasn’t enough, his younger brother had realized too late that the magic he had spent months upon months training to use was going to be useless during the battle. The Hunger cut off all planes, so even if the Celestial Plane was within touching distance, he wouldn’t be able to do anything magic-related until the Hunger passed and allowed the Bonds to heal. 

Travis approached them five minutes to noon, his glasses pushed high up his nose and his hands clasped tightly in front of him. “What’s going on?” 

Griffin looked up. “Oh nothing much. Someone gave us guns!” He showed his older brother the shotgun he had been provided. “Need to find some extra ammo, but I’ve got a weapon.”

“I’ve got a knife!” Clint said, showing the butchers knife he had brought from home. “Got it professionally sharpened the other day. Carol has the other one.” 

Carol held up a large carving knife that gleamed in the muted light. “I think we’ll be safe.” 

Something like a rumble of thunder shook the building, bringing muffled screams from young children. Justin pulled his daughters and wife closer to him, his other hand tightening around the glock in his pocket. The rumbling passed, but they could hear the wind outside beginning to pick up. Justin glanced through a small hole in the side of the warehouse and saw the sky beginning to darken to a pitch black filled with swirling colors. Gorgeous reds, blues, purples, and greens spinning around each other in a delicate, dangerous dance. With a jolt of horror, he saw bulges beginning to form in the sky as the Hunger began to reach for the ground.

“It’s coming,” he said, still staring out through the wall.

“You guys are the ones the internet was talking about.” A young man about 17 years old was sitting nearby, his hands gripping his jeans so tightly his knuckles were turning white. “You know what all of this is and why it’s here.” 

“Yeah, we do,” Justin said. “It’s here for the Light that fell near the beginning of the year, just before the IPRE showed up. But since the crew got it before the Hunger, it’ll attack, but it’ll leave once it realizes that the Light isn’t here.” 

“What makes you so sure that it won’t just destroy everything and then move on?” the man asked. 

Griffin sighed. “You heard about us on the internet, right? So you know our connection to this thing? Yeah? In a way, we- I created this threat. But I also designed how it worked, and it can’t do any more then scour the earth for the Light. Without the Light, it’ll grow hungry and desperate, so it’ll move on to the next plane and leave us alone. With the Light… that’s a different story that doesn’t matter right now.”

“So we’re going to be okay?” 

“Yeah of course we are!” Travis said, forcing some confidence into his voice. “The crew has the Light and are preparing to leave right now!”

“What’s your name, kid?” Clint asked. 

“Kevin.” 

“Kevin, all those people out there, they’re here to protect us all. They know what they’re doing. They’re going to protect us for however long the Hunger is here and when this is all over, the world will rebuild together.” 

Another rumble shook the building, this one closer, more powerful. People began to scream, pressing themselves against the walls of the warehouse, trying desperately for escape. The family huddled against each other, their hands clasping each other as the building was filled with a beautiful white light- wait… 

The rumbling was different than that of the Hunger; it was more controlled, more precise, if sound could be that. And whatever was causing it was emitting a brilliant white light that bathed the warehouse in warmth and hope. Everyone in the building felt something within them grow stronger, like a string between them and every molecule across the world was pulled taught. And although the moment passed in the blink of an eye, it was enough to bring the world closer together in a way that would save countless lives. 

That isn’t important at the moment. The current time in the family’s story was filled with fear and wonder as they stared at the front of the warehouse, the glowing white light shining through the doors and windows, nearly blinding the occupants. The warehouse was echoing with whispers, each one wondering what was going on, but Griffin knew exactly what this was. After all, he had created it.

“It… no, it can’t be.” The entrance to the warehouse shook as something large landed outside, and even from where they were in the warehouse, they could hear the confusion and chaos as five people came storming into the facility, weapons raised and hopes high.

“MCELROYS! WHERE ARE YOU IN THIS MESS?!  _ MCELROYS?! _ ”

All eyes turned on the family as the group made their way through the crowd, the largest in the group high fiving people as he shoved them out of the way. Travis stood, looking at the group and taking a quick headcount. Five people, all whom they knew almost as well as they knew themselves. The other two were unaccounted for, but based on the light outside the warehouse, were nearby. 

“There you guys are!” Magnus said, running up to them and slapping Travis on the back. “Worried we had gotten the warehouse wrong!” 

“Again,” Taako mumbled. 

“It’s not my fault that all the warehouses in this part of the world look the same!” Magnus replied. 

“All warehouses look the same, period,” Lup argued. “They’re warehouses and unless there’s something special about them, there’s no way to distinguish one from another.”

“Thank you, Lup.”

“What are you guys doing here?!” Justin asked, keenly aware of how many eyes were on him and his family. “Don’t you guys have to get out of here or be ready to leave before the Hunger comes?!” 

“Don’t worry about that,” Barry said. “Dav is on the ship ready to hit it once the Hunger touches down-”

“Wording, sweetie,” Lup said.

“And what about Lucretia?” Clint asked. “Is she with him?”

“Yeah. I suggested that I stay, but since my magic ain’t exactly working right now -sorry ‘bout that Trav- I figured I’d be better down here than on the ship,” Merle said. “She’ll have a better time protecting him than I ever would.”

“Then what will you be able to do down here?” Carol asked to which Merle grinned mercilessly and pulled a gun out of the folds of his robes. 

“Who gave this guy a gun?!” Taako screeched. “That was a mistake!”

“One of the women from outside gave it to me!” Merle replied, waving the gun in Taako’s face. “She seemed very enamoured by my very presence.” 

“I highly doubt that little man, seeing as I was standing right behind you,” Lup said.

“Seriously though, Justin’s right.” Griffin said, stepping up to them. “You all should be on the ship, giving Dav the best chance to get out of here without trouble. If you stay here, than-”

“No ‘buts’,” Barry said. “You guys have given us so much this year. It’s only fair that we stay as long as we possibly can to help out.” 

“If we’re going down this cycle, we’re going down fighting,” Taako said, pulling out his wand. 

“I would have stayed anyways,” Magnus said. “I stay almost every cycle if I reach the end.”

“He still hasn’t reached my levels of death yet,” Merle said. “Buddy boy out there took me out more times than I can count.”

“And also, you really think we would have left without saying goodbye?” Lup said, flashing a grin. “We’ll be fighting out there, so once we leave, that’s the last you’ll ever see of us.”

“Oh… didn’t think about it that way.” 

Barry shrugged. “Didn’t think you would. Now get in here before the Hunger gets here.”

The group embraced each other tightly. Hugs were shared all around, hands were shook and, yes, a few tears were spilled. People around them were watching curiously but didn’t try to do anything about it. They sensed the bonds between the family and the crew was stronger than anyone could imagine, but it wasn’t the strongest in the room; those were being forged by the crew with every second that passed. 

“Take care of yourself, Taako,” Justin said, giving the elf a tight squeeze. "Gonna miss you."

“Don’t get too sentimental there, kemosabe,” Taako replied, but gave his friend a hug all the same. “Take care of your kiddos and make sure they know their rights from wrongs, dos and don’ts, what to eat and what not to eat.” 

“I think they already do. I do need to get them on more vegetables though, so I’ll need to work on that.” Justin grinned and just to poke fun at him said, “Take care of Angus and Kravitz.”

“Who?”

Justin choked on a laugh, once again taken aback at how ironic Taako’s lines were. “You’ll- you’ll see.”

Clint, Merle and Carols stood in front of each other, not really knowing what to say.

“I’m terrible at goodbyes,” Merle said.

“Yeah, I know,” Clint said. 

“You get that from him,” Carol said.

Merle chuckled, holding out a hand, which Clint shook firmly. “Take care of yourself old man. Like I keep saying, you got yourself an excellent family here.”

“Who you calling old?” Clint chuckled. “Thanks, Merle. Take care of them. Pan knows they need at least somewhat of a competent healer. Keep working on it, it’ll get there eventually… I think.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

Travis and Magnus were having the hardest time saying goodbye. The two had grown the closest together out of all of the crew and family from how much time they spent training and just how similar they were to each other. The two were hugging tightly muttering words of encouragement and jokes. 

“Remember to eat plenty of protein.”

“Remember to keep your axe clean.”

“Don’t forget to change your socks at least once a month so you don’t get anything nasty on your feet.”

“Keep loving the way you do.”

“I will if you keep in contact.”

“I wi- I can’t do that, Mag. I literally cannot-”

“Yeah I know, I was just fucking with you.”

Lup and Barry turned to Griffin, their hands clasped tightly together. “Any last words to say to the two of us, oh lord and creator?” 

Griffin chuckled, pulling the two of them into a hug. “Nothing you guys haven’t heard before from me.” 

“Come on, Griff! Just one little spoiler?” Lup teased. “For the apocalypse?”

“Lup, come on. We’re not supposed to know.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve been thinking about this and realized that any spoilers I tell you won’t matter. And the reasoning behind that is a spoiler that I can’t explain. That’s a big no no.” Griffin sighed, readjusting his glasses. “But here’s one for each of you. Lup, keep those umbrellas. Find one that you really, really like and make sure that Taako likes it too.”

Lup cocked her head, looking offended and intrigued. “Why would I share my favorite umbrella with my dear brother?”

“If I told you that, that’d be a spoiler no wouldn’t it? Just trust me, alright? Find that umbrella. And Barry… keep loving Lup. I’m serious about this one. She is going to be more important than you can ever realize. Actually, without her... I can’t say any more than that.”

“Well that’s ominous but doable.” Barry gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Griffin.” 

The IPRE crew pulled back from the family, grinning from ear to ear. The family looked at their creations- no, their friends with pride and sadness. None of them said anything, because what could be said that hadn’t been said or wasn’t an understanding between these people? While the crew could say they had lives no one else could or ever would have, the family could say with certainty that they had never had a year like this. They claimed the prize for strangest, most meta year in existence. 

In the silence, the crew turned around and left the building, leaving the warehouse in awed silence. The light of the Starblaster flashed briefly as the ship rose higher and higher into the sky, bringing Lucretia and Davenport with it and eventually plunging the warehouse into darkness. Someone sniffed, but no one said anything or had time to say anything as the entire world seemed to split apart, the warehouse shaking violently with the force of the attack outside. They heard gunfire and explosions, but they also heard triumphant yelling from Magnus as he undoubtedly charged head-first into the fray, felt the distinct heat of Lup’s power through the walls, heard ungodly screeches from the Hunger’s armies as Barry used some kind of necrotic damage on them, Merle yelling in anger as he tried to figure out how to work the gun. The walls of the warehouse began to glow and creak under Taako’s turquoise magic that transformed sheets of aluminum that made up the walls into thick steel walls. 

And for a moment during this transformation, everyone could see through the walls. They saw the Hunger attacking their forces with weapons made of opalescent magic. It kept them at bay, but those with long-ranged weapons made quick use of them, taking down many of earth’s own as the Hunger approached. But even then, they saw the IPRE crew fighting alongside them, hardly doing a thing but providing help along the way. Just before the magic faded, we see the crew look at their bodies in familiar shock as they dissolved into strands of white light that flew high, high into the air, disappearing amongst the storm. 

But the McElroy family inside this secure cage knew that they would be fine. Their bonds held strong against any fear that tried to penetrate their minds. After all, whether or not they had intended to, they had created every reality’s greatest heroes. While they didn’t know what would happen after the Hunger left, they knew that they would be together. 


End file.
